Will the iPhone from Apple Inc. (NYSE: AAPL) come to Verizon Wireless, the joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) and Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT)? That depends who you ask. A spokesman for Verizon Wireless said yesterday that his company had “no plan to carry the Apple iPhone in the immediate future.” That may sound definitive, but is in fact pretty vague. The “immediate future” could be this week and “no plan” can turn into a big plan pretty quickly.
What the Verizon Wireless spokesman did say was that the company would be launching its 4G service in 25-30 cities across the US before the end of this year. The wireless provider won’t have handsets out that are 4G-compatible until early 2011, but other devices will be available at launch.
The other potential partner, Apple, is similarly vague, but with the added twist that its vagueness is phrased positively. When CEO Steve Jobs was asked if there is an advantage to offering an iPhone on more than one carrier’s network, he said, “There might be.”
That answer could turn on your definition of what an “advantage” is and who would benefit, and also on what your definition of an iPhone is. Jobs is expected to announce availability of a 4G-compatible iPhone at the Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference next week.
Jobs answered another question regarding iPhone availability on another network in 2010 with “no comment.” Was he just being coy or did he really mean not to say “no” definitively?
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That could mean that the rumor of a 4G iPhone on the Sprint Nextel Inc. (NYSE: S) network is true, and that it will be announced at next week’s anticipated launch of the phone. This is unlikely, but barely possible.
There have also been rumors of a less feature-rich iPhone, but that too seems unlikely because it’s not really in Apple’s best interest to introduce a crippled product that will alienate consumers. Besides, what could the company leave out and still claim that the gadget is an iPhone?
Verizon Wireless appears to be solidly behind the Android-based phones it is currently selling, so the company’s statement that it has no plan for an iPhone in the immediate future probably should be taken at face value.
Jobs’s statement that there might be an advantage to having the iPhone on another network should also be taken at face value. Apple would definitely gain an advantage from such a deal. But AT&T (NYSE: T) seems willing to pay any price to maintain its exclusivity for the iPhone, and more revenue from AT&T is just as good as an additional stream from either Verizon Wireless or Sprint as far as Apple’s bottom line is concerned.
In the iPhone’s case, the more things stay the same, the more they might change.
