Apple rumoured to be testing dual-mode iPhone 5 in the wild

A couple iPhone 5 rumors just don’t seem to be going away. Still making the rounds is the rumor that the iPhone 5 will be a dual-mode CDMA and GSM world-phone that will work on both networks, without having to buy a new phone.

The confirmation comes from TechCrunch who was tipped off by a developer who noticed that a new Apple device that is “decidedly dual-mode” has begun appearing in their logs. The phone managed to be uniquely identified using MNC/MCC codes from both Verizon and AT&T.

As we said, this rumor has been around for months, and a lot of people have weighed in on the possibility that the next generation iPhone 5 could be dual-mode.

For most, the benefit is as simple as being able to take your phone with you between carriers, should you find their service lacking; however, the biggest group to gain from the change is travellers who find themselves abroad with a phone that doesn’t support CDMA or GSM. A world-mode iPhone will let them hop onto either network in the future.

To be frank, a majority of people won’t ever benefit from this. Contracts still make it difficult to jump between carriers, and coverage problems limit which networks will be optimal in an area.

Source: TechCrunch

Joshua is the Content Marketing Manager at BuySellAds. He’s also the founder of Macgasm.net. And since all that doesn’t quite give him enough content to wrangle, he’s also a technology journalist in his spare time, with bylines at PCWorld, Macworld and TechHive.