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Apple May Bring a Non-iPhone To Verizon Wireless
The Narrative Fallacy writes "According to BusinessWeek, Verizon Wireless is in talks with Apple to distribute two new iPhone-like devices that are not iPhones. (Apple has created prototypes.) AT&T's contract with Apple, which has not been made public, is believed to cover all models of the iPhone, but only the iPhone. So if Apple builds something that isn't an iPhone — and perhaps doesn't even make cellular calls — they won't be violating their exclusivity contract with AT&T, which runs through at least 2010. One device is a smaller, less expensive calling device described by a person who has seen it as an 'iPhone lite.' The other is a media pad, said to be smaller than a Kindle but with a bigger screen, that would let users listen to music, view photos, watch high-definition videos, and make calls over a Wi-Fi connection. (And read books?) Apple could use the prospect of an iPhone-esque device as leverage to prevent Verizon Wireless from introducing the Palm Pre, or at least to delay its introduction on Verizon's network. 'The media pad category might go to Verizon,' said one person who has seen the device. 'We are talking about a device where people will say, "Damn, why didn't we do this?" Apple is probably going to define the damn category.'" Reader stevegee58 writes with word that Verizon may be playing both ends against the middle. Marketwatch reports that Microsoft and Verizon are in talks to develop a touch-screen mobile phone that would run on Windows Mobile.
This sounds an awful like what Jobs did when he decided to kill off the clone makers after he came back as CEO. They had a license for OS 8, so he just changed the name to OS 9.
The Palm Pre needs to come out first for that particular plan to work.
You miss the point. All it's saying is Apple can make a device strikingly similar to an iPhone but at long as it's not called "iPhone" it's not required to be on AT&T.
The back story here is that verizon is switching away from CDMA. they are expected however to maintain CDMA for voice and phase in the new network for data. Apple has said they are not eager to develop for CDMA since it has no future.
So if apple came out with a data device, say a netbook, for verizon it could run on the new network and not bother with CDMA.
makes total sense.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This whole things reeks of making-stuff-up!
Apple isn't a monopoly though, the competition just plain sucks. Ok, so there are some pretty nice MP3 players that aren't iPods, but they are few and far between, and even then many don't have the features that an iPod does, and then there's no MP3 player that comes close to the iPod Touch (aside from game/music hybrids like PSPs and the GP2x). For smart phones, Windows Mobile plain sucks (seriously, you shouldn't have random freeze ups and vendors shouldn't be forced to create another OS on top of WinMo in order to make it usable), Android, while nice and usable (and will undoubtedly be better in the long run) just doesn't have the polish of the iPhone OS in April of 2009, Symbian doesn't really excel in anything, and BlackBerry is devoid of innovation (but I can't really fault Blackberries for that, they after all are more an ultra-reliable corporate phone rather then a geek plaything).
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Actually, the iPhone has all of those except tactile keyboard, copy/paste, tethering, MMS, and Ogg support. If you count the upcoming release of the iPhone OS, you'll only be missing a tactile keyboard and Ogg support.
Seriously, why do people get so hung up on Ogg support? Less than 1/10th of 1 percent of digital music listeners even know what it is or care to use it, so why should Apple support it? DRM free AAC is good enough quality and unencumbered enough to use (unencumbered as in Apple pays for the license so wtf do I care?).
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon