Steve Jobs Wanted an iPhone-Only Wireless Network

jfruhlinger writes "One of the more profound ways that the iPhone changed the mobile industry was the fact that it upended the relationship between the handset maker and the wireless carrier: Apple sells many of its phones directly to customers, and in general has much more of an upper hand with carriers than most phone manufacturers. But venture capitalist John Stanton, who was friends with Steve Jobs in the years when the iPhone was in development, said the Apple CEO's initial vision was even more radical: he wanted Apple to build its own wireless network using unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum, thus bypassing the carriers altogether."

Comments

Apple's Future

[LowlyWorm]

I hate to speak ill of the man so soon after death but I always felt Apple was always too restrained by him. Every thing they do is so closed and exclusive. They never extended a hand to the open source community. Yes, the same could have been said of Microsoft but Apple seemed off the deep end. This did offer some of the benefits of Job's vision but I think Apple may be poised in a better position now. Time will tell.