Friday, June 18, 2010

Why I still hope for a Verizon iPhone

I watched Steve Jobs’ two hour keynote at the Apple Development Conference for one reason and one reason alone: to hear news on a potential Verizon iPhone.

Don’t get me wrong, my Blackberry Tour has done a lot for me… that is, when the trackball actually works. But I’m looking at all of these large screen phones and it is making my Blackberry look more and more inadequate. I get annoyed when I see a website that I use on a daily basis come out with a mobile app and then it is only available on… the iPhone. And if the company is really devoted to the mobile platform, the next one up is… the Android OS. Blackberry is a distant third, and sometimes the Blackberry app comes crippled with limited features; examples at the time of this writing include Dropbox and Mint. This makes me very sad.

Everybody knows that a Verizon iPhone would make sense on a lot of levels for Apple: 80 million potential customers, and a more reliable network, to name a couple (some people will disagree, but well, I stand by my statement).

There are also a few reasons for Apple not to go to Verizon: the need to make a CDMA phone in addition to the current GSM-based phone they have, the need to negotiate terms for Verizon that may not be as lucrative as their deal with AT&T, and so on.

And so I wait.

No word from Apple probably means the earliest launch date would be mid-2011, if ever. I could just go ahead and get an Android phone, especially when the HTC Droid Incredible, Motorola Droid Xtreme, and the Motorola Droid 2 are going to be/already are available; and to be honest, the reasons to choose between Android phones and the iPhone become more and more only a matter of preference. If the new iPhone doesn’t come out soon enough for Verizon, I may go and get my own Transformer and never turn back.

But I’m not at that point yet… here are rumors on the Verizon iPhone coming out at the end of the year. And with that, I maintain my hope.

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