The Drumbeat for a Verizon / Apple partnership is getting louder

Re: The Drumbeat for a Verizon / Apple partnership is getting louder

To parrot MBW discussion, it seems a cinch that Apple is working on (something like a ) 5" 960 x 540 (one-quarter 1080p) tablet using iPhone OS 3. This will be a new tablet computer and/or netbook response. It would be a niche smash hit (oxymoronic?) Though I wonder if the average user would find much value in a larger, clunkier device?

I can't envision a smaller, cheaper iPhone, the rumored iPhone nano. It doesn't seem like a good idea to me, just yet. But I'm just a dog on the internet...

As for Verizon? Sounds like pure fiction. It's perverse to have an iPhone nano and iPhone mega but no actual iPhone on Verizon. Maybe it's an end-run around Apple's contract with AT&T? Maybe Apple thinks it needs to ramp up revenue in the recession? Maybe it wants more leverage over AT&T? Maybe RIM is being targeted by Apple's death-ray satellites with an unexpected push into all US carriers with Apple OS devices?

If there's a new device, speculators believe we'll hear about it at WWDC.

Re: The Drumbeat for a Verizon / Apple partnership is getting louder

Hmmm...

You know what? I was a loyal Verizon user for years prior to
the iPhone.

When the iPhone came out on the AT&T network and I had to switch
over, like many others, I was yelling and screaming about the less
than stellar AT&T service.

Have to tell you, however, I kind of have grown accustomed to
AT&T's service. Have had no real problems over the past year
and I love the roll-over minutes which prevents me from having
to go to a more expensive plan when I need the extra time.

And, truth be, Verizon has been one of the most crooked companies
out there when it comes to controlling and locking features on their
phones which I hear is one of the biggest reasons Apple chose AT&T
over that service.

Bottom line is, I am not unhappy with AT&T and hope that Apple
continues its relationship with that service.

So far, it doesn’t look like Verizon is going to get anything big iPhone
wise. It looks like lighter fare.

Re: The Drumbeat for a Verizon / Apple partnership is getting louder

BusinessWeek article and video (thanks to DF)

My "pure fiction" balloon is certainly popped by this article.

This business reminds me again why I wish phone hardware and phone service were separated. I want to buy the best phone and buy the best service. Imagine if you had to buy your TV from your cable / satellite company. You want a Samsung LCD, they it's ComCast for you. If you want TW then you have to go with Panasonic Plasma. It's asinine.

And as I look to upgrading phones for my wife and I, it's nothing but confusion. She might like the new Palm Pre; that's Sprint. I look forward to an iPhone; that's AT&T. Or we stay with Verizon and she gets a Treo (blech) and I get a Blackberry (blech) from work. We can't get the phones of our choice without borking our carrier choice.

Re: The Drumbeat for a Verizon / Apple partnership is getting louder

I'll believe it when I see it (Verizon iPhone). Of course with the recent Microsoft "Zune phone" news (they are supposedly releasing it on Verizon in 2010 (talk about 3 years too late...)), Apple may want to make sure there isn't a "carrier umbrella" to paraphrase Tim Cook.

But the most likely scenario is leaks as AT&T contract negotiating tactic. Even if the source is Verizon -- wouldn't they want AT&T to pay Apple double for the iPhone?

Oh, and I'm with Ron -- I'd never go back to Verizon.

Re: The Drumbeat for a Verizon / Apple partnership is getting louder

Daring Fireball: Regarding the Verizon and 'iPhone Lite' Rumors

John Gruber's on the mark commentary.

Re: The Drumbeat for a Verizon / Apple partnership is getting louder

MBW gives comments from an unnamed source in Verizon that discussions are real, and refer to bringing iphones to Verizon in 2010 or 2011 on their next-gen network. If correct, this is all nothing more than previously expected: Apple will bring the 4G iPhone to Verizon's 4G network in a couple years.

Re: The Drumbeat for a Verizon / Apple partnership is getting louder

It probably would be like that if any of the cable companies had real competition. For 99 percent of subscribers out there, having TW means not even having Comcast as an option and vice-versa. Once FiOS breaks through the franchising agreement hurdle, we'll start to see that change.

AI is claiming a 10" tablet out in Q1 of 2010:
www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/07/24/apples_much_anticipated_tablet_device_coming_early_next_year.html

DaringFireball has also had some comments suggesting this AT&T's exclusivity is on the decline. MBW I think spoke of rumors of a non-phone table. This is all interesting to me technologically, but the prospect of Verizon getting a tablet but no iPhone is a loser of deal, IMO.

 Well, I think it is common knowledge that the iPhone contract with AT&T runs through xx/2010.  So the only thing Verizon could get before then is a non-iPhone device.  But I think it highly unlikely that Apple will extend the AT&T deal, so likely the 2010 iPhone model will go to others as well.  The question is will LTE roll out be far enough along to justify a LTE Verizon iPhone in 2010.  

You ever happen upon an old reply of yours and wonder what the hell you were talking about? After reading my May 4th post, I can only conclude that I didn't actually read the post I was quoting.

I like the game being played by the Tablet rumor. Lacking any news, commentators are now playing rumor jumble by mashing together two previously played out rumors to get something new to page hits.

So: 
* New camera coming to Nanos.
* Steve Jobs got a new Liver.


=> Steve Jobs' new Liver is made of nanotech with cameras built in that take snapshots of his organs to watch for future disease.

You can play along!

There is NO possible way Apple is dropping a LTE/4G phone this summer.. no way at all.  People can rumor it all they want, but you can basically guarantee that will not happen.  I don't mean "kind of" I mean, no way in hell.. maybe -next- year, but no way at all before January 1 next year, and likely not for some time right after that.  And no LTE support is even brewing anywhere.

Quote:
Or maybe the next iPhone will come this summer just like it has for the three years prior?

Perhaps there will finally be a CDMA iPhone on Verizon or Sprint this year. But I agree with Matt: no LTE this year. Why would Apple sell a phone for a network that doesn't yet exist?

And I can imagine a Sprint phone first, as Sprint will certainly take Apple's conditions after the Palm debacle failed to help them out. And two carriers with a wildly popular iPhone helps Apple get negotiating leverage over Verizon.

So, you're thinking 2013 or later?

That reflects my thinking: if Android is too much of a threat to remain on a single carrier, Apple will switch.

 

I'll further speculate that Apple's disadvantage is beginning and will only get worse year by year. Unlike with the Mac, Apple wants not just profits but marketshare. They want to define the direction of the new generation of phones and be able to push the carriers to do their bidding. That requires marketshare. With Android succeeding, Android will continue to succeed. And with Android on every carrier, if it succeeds through Verizon's efforts, it will benefit from that on all carriers, as it gains more traction and marketshare. And it can grow in absolute numbers 2:1 to Apple so long as Apple is AT&T exclusive. And that means Apple can only begin to lose marketshare and risk losing influence the longer they are constrained to AT&T.

 

And their walled garden and iron-fisted control only works as long as they are so valuable to developers that dev's tolerate it. As Android gets marketshare, developers may find that open, if weedy, garden more attractive. And if the apps go. so do the users. Apple can maintain a solid userbase, and be quite profitable -- as with Macs. But they'll be increasingly marginalized and no longer drive the market. And if they're marginalized too much AT&T will begin to dictate to Apple the terms of the hardware, the revenue sharing, etc.

 

So Apple is potentially at the cusp of their decline, and they need to get to other carriers as soon as possible.

 

Now, Apple's best-defense-is-a-good-offense move was first the iPad and now the iPad. Expanding the Touch OS beyond cellphone devices expands the opportunities for marketshare for this overall system, increasing opportunities for developers to work with the system, and reduces their reliance on the whims of AT&T and Verizon.

 

So, when does Apple go to Verizon?

* Before Android exceeds RIM's marketshare

* When they see growth from AT&T decline or cease

* When people start leaving AT&T to return to Verizon because Android phones are good enough.

 

Ultimately, I don't if we want a dominant Apple. But clearly we want a strong Apple to innovate the lead the design for the entire industry.

You do mention the other iPhone OS products -- and there Android has no traction at all. And while there are some feeble attempts at Android tablets in the works, the iPod Touch market has been surrendered to Apple - and they sell nearly as many of those as they do iPhones.

 

Android wouldn't exist without carrier subsidies. Between worldwide iPhone sales and domestic/worldwide iPod Touch and iPad sales, Verizon's customer base is a non-event. If Android was getting anywhere Apple wouldn't have 95% of the mobile App market (or whatever Adobe was claiming).

 

Further I think that El Jobso regards the iPad as more important than the iPhone, and without carrier subsidies Android is at a severe disadvantage trying to compete there.

Edited by Ted Todorov - 5/15/10 at 12:06pm

Even though the iPod Touch sales are big, I don't think it's nearly as important as the iPhone. It doesn't have the mindshare. It doesn't specifically drive the technology: the iPhone is always ahead of it. And ultimately, the mobile communications market will define critical mobile OS standards.

 

If the iPhone loses the cellphone market, the iPod Touch won't save Apple.

 

The iPad, I agree, is betting the farm. That's the watershed even in personal computing.

The ultimate battle is over developer mindshare -- a developer doesn't care if an iPhone user or iPodTouch user is buying there app -- in fact they don't know.  If 90%+ of the app sales stay in the iPhone OS realm, so will the developers.  It's as simple as that. 
 

I think this mindset will be death for Apple if they believe it.  In 1986, Apple was 98% of the school education market.  They dominated it in such a fashion that it was almost unthinkable that that would change.  But low and behold, give it a few years, and it did.

For Apple, the transition from the AppleII to Mac was a fairly painful one in that regard, but longterm, it helped also. 

 

But with the Iphone, they have a different gamble.  Right now they are 95% of the app sales (though I doubt that, but maybe).  Here's the hitch:  Android has realistically been on the market less then a year.  And Blackberry isn't really in the same segment, but they've only had AppWorld for about 7 months.  Both of those are "young" products.

 

For RIM, it really doesn't matter.  RIM (Blackberry) appeals in a lot of ways to a much different market, and that market is not likely to change, for several reasons that neither Google or Apple are willing to bend their product to meet those market segments (because they are by and large, in comparison to all cellphone users, small). 

 

But Google is running an interesting gamble.  It's the same one Microsoft made in the 1990s.  You don't have to be perfect, you just have to be "good enough" and you have to be available in a broad means.  Google will have android phones on every platform (Tmobile, Verizon, ATT, Sprint).  Hell, Google already has pre-paid options. 

 

Apple may find that it's agreement with ATT becomes stifling if Google races past it in installed user base.  Because if that happens, and the installed user base shifts, apple will have to compete against a much broader audience.  Fact is, more eyeballs equals more sales. 

 

Apple is OK when it's up against say, Nokia.. a straight phone.  Or Palm, an organizing phone that hasn't really successfully battled out RIM for that market.  But Google is a different animal.  Google is marketing itself on "we have incredible apps, because we are google"  And unlike those others, Google has also built up a lot of brandname awareness in a positive light.

 

Google share could grow much faster then Apple share, simply because it will be on many more platforms at a myriad of price points. 

 

I don't see Apple hopping to Verizon tomorrow.  I don't know if they can without a stiff penalty.  And the iPad is another gamble in that pattern too.  But, if they let Google completely outflank them, they will run into another problem of "good enough" beating out a potentially better idea because it's so much more available, cheaper, and offers floods of diversity/differences that apple can't keep up with.

Matt, I agree with everything you say, but keep in mind the AT&T exclusivity is a US only phenomenon. In most countries the iPhone is on most major carriers. Not coincidentally Android is nowhere outside of the US.

 

This just isn't analogous to the Mac vs. Microsoft battle of old*. The old Apple didn't have Steve Jobs (or Tim Cook for thatn matter). Sculley was an idiot. They also didn't have two other equally successful product lines running MacOS. History just isn't going to repeat itself with Android.

 

EDIT:

*Other missing ingredients -- Android isn't in business the way Microsoft was.  There wasn't the Microsoft Windows fragmentation that exists in ANdroid (anything pre 3.1 was so bad, nobody stayed on it.  And 3.1 to 95 was a huge leap.  DOS apps worked under Windows etc.

The games are on iPhone OS, not Android (and interpreted Java is never going to match C/Obj-C/Assembler on iPhone OS for hard core game performance). 

Edited by Ted Todorov - 5/15/10 at 4:21pm

Quote:

Apple is doing everything it can to prevent that. OS 4 is clearly a response to Android. Apple marketing made an overt response to NPD's report that Android has overtaken iPhone in US marketshare. Their iAds looks like both a revenue source and also an indirect attack at Google's core advertising business.

 

Apple's dominance is not assured, they know it, and are running as fast as possible to remain the leader in both marketshare, profits, and hearts-and-minds of consumers.

 

It's a very interesting time in computing. It reminds me a bit of the excitement of the  80's with the myriad competing systems, changing drastically every few years.

And Vz is rumored to have an interim (pre-LTE) Voice+Data network upgrade in the works.

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/05/19/verizon-apple-iphone-to-launch-with-simultaneous-voice-and-data/