Hmmmmm looky looky the article I just came across on Gizmodo. Gotta admit, they do make some very valid points. READ!
The day that Verizon gets the iPhone will be remembered as glorious by everybody who's dropped 12 calls in a row, been taunted by meaningless signal bars and just plain had a miserable AT&T experience. But they shouldn't buy one.
Let's keep in mind what Apple—or rather, Verizon—is announcing, precisely. A new carrier for the iPhone 4. That's it. Not a new product. That's why Apple is ceding the stage to Verizon. If it was a truly new product, Apple would do all the talking.
Apple will announce a new iPhone in June, as they have every year since 2008. It'll go on sale later that month, or in early July, as it has every year. That's six months from now. And it'll be better than the iPhone 4 in some tangible way. Maybe not on the order of the leap from the 3GS to the iPhone 4, but it'll have something new to offer. And everybody will want it, because that's how things seem to work with Apple: There's just enough new to make whatever Apple product you've currently got in your hand feel deficient in some way.
But the people who just bought on an iPhone 4 with Verizon will be locked into new 2-year contracts. Their new phones, though maybe better at holding calls better than their AT&T counterparts, will still be old news just a few months after birth. And what if the iPhone does the same thing to Verizon it did to AT&T? Let everybody else be an early adopter.
It's possible that Verizon will come up with some crazy deal to make its warmed-over iPhone 4 undeniably tempting—unlimited data is a start—like selling it for half-price. But the only deal you should consider is one that'll let you upgrade to the next iPhone almost immediately, like a one-year contract. I wouldn't count on anything too wild, though, because Verizon is the most conservative carrier of the four—it's got the best combined network and hardware position now, and it knows it. Remember? It's Verizon who passed up the iPhone in the first place, not the other way around.
It's virtually guaranteed that the next iPhone will come to AT&T and Verizon at the same time (there might be some gap, but it will likely be small—after all, Apple doesn't want to hose their 100 million potential new customers). So if you're on Verizon, itching to the pull the trigger, do yourself a favor. Just wait. You've held on for years. What's a few more months?
I'm pretty stoked for the announcement ... but I agree, I wouldn't go breaking contracts if you're on AT&T and what not until Apple does their announcement in June. All of this to be honest with you just makes my head spin. I don't have an iPhone. I am a DIE HARD mac head owning my macbook pro, ipod touch, ipad, even kick it old school with my green screen mini ... but I also worked in sales for Verizon back in the day, and have had their service since 94. Literally, it was pac-bell at the time ... and my parentals made my bro and I have a cell phone to reach us when we were at the mall. So lame ... hated it. I dunno, I'm stickin with my Droid for now. I need it for my OWLE to be able to enhance the livestreaming that I do, and the rest is just kinda meh. I'm the last one to rush out and get something when it is released. I'm a 2.0 kinda gal, I like to let other people figure out the kinks and problems first. Won't see me getting one when the announcement is made. But stoked either way! Go Verizon and Apple for makin whoopie!! So hot ...
Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 11:15PM
