14 DAY TRIAL // A 4G / LTE iPhone is coming right after Christmas, a source close to Verizon says. According to this person, the carrier held management training for iPhone sales last week, while Verizon staffers had “functioning” LTE-capable Apple iPhones in their hands for the training sessions.
Citing a source it believes to be familiar with the matter, MacDailyNews claims that the following information is from a sole source that it believes to be credible.
Nonetheless, the news should be treated as a rumor, the blog notes, since it cannot independently confirm the information for the time being.
Without further ado, here’s what the source in question allegedly learned:
• Verizon held management training for iPhone sales last week
• Verizon had functioning iPhones (LTE-capable) in management hands for the training sessions
• Formal announcement coming right "after christmas", was
• The formal announcement of the iPhones Verizon debut is coming right after Christmas; "Apparently ATT's final demand so as to maximize ATT's Christmas iPhone sales"
• The Verizon iPhone will be immediately available upon formal announcement
• Device has been "100% cooked for quite a while" and already shipping in bulk to Verizon warehouses
• The Verizon iPhone is not being shipped to any 3rd-party retailers in an effort to control leaks
• Verizon agreed to take 100% responsibility for security, so all the devices will be in their hands until the official announcement date, and they will then distribute thru channels in massive manner (hence early stockpiling)
• The new iPhone is an LTE device and that fact - the only "LTE iPhone," exclusive to Verizon - will be the main marketing theme; i.e. "For the new '4G' (cough) verizon network" that Verizon has already started promoting
• As rollout of LTE not actually widepsread, Verizon iPhone will have multi-band chip backward compatibility with regular CDMA
• iPhone 5 was planned to debut in summer as LTE-only, for all contracted carriers, but the clock is ticking and nobody thinks either Verizon or AT&T can get to critical mass to offer an LTE-only version
• Steve Jobs is said to be upset that carriers cannot seem to get their LTE act together more quickly
• Apple is "helping" U.S. carriers (money?) to build out LTE more quickly
There is reason to believe all this information is bogus, with 9to5mac pointing out to the rough time Apple had been trying to roll out a 3G-capable iPhone.
Similarly, the 4G standard requires not only different chips, but also a bigger / better battery. Apple is already pushing the limit with the iPhone 4, while the handset hasn’t even been on the market for a full year.
The Cupertino company traditionally refreshes its product lines once a year for each kind of device.
There is no indication that this time will be any different.
The iPhone doesn’t seem to be in need of a refresh for the moment, despite rumors of Apple switching from AT&T to Verizon as the exclusive iPhone carrier in The States.