If you’re a Verizon user waiting to get your hands on an iPhone you’ll likely be waiting until 2012. Court documents dating back to Oct. 2008 show that AT&T and Apple have entered into an exclusivity deal until 2012.
Nilay Patel from Engadget has noted that the contract could be “canceled, amended, and breached in many ways.” So, the real question is whether AT&Ts crappy service is a big enough problem to be a deal breaker for Apple. If it is, Apple could have the ability to revisit the agreement.
Some people in the industry believe that the contract was amended, and that it’s expected to end this summer, and the rumours of a CDMA-capable iPhone seem to support their claims.
With the news of Android-OS based smartphones outselling the iPhone, one has to wonder if Apple’s kicking themselves for locking up their phone with one carrier in the US. It’s obvious that the proliferation of Android phones can be attributed to being readily available to all cellphone users across multiple carriers.
Hopefully it’s not too late for Apple to give Verizon users what they’ve been wanting for a while now. With the success of Android, and the expectation that HP is going to offer a WebOS phone by years end, this could be a huge missed opportunity for Apple.
Article Via Engadget
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