It remains to be seen whether ATT is chasing margetshare at the expense of quality. Will they have enough revenue to continue upgrading it's network to handle the additoinal load these devices will add? Or will the quality suffer?
I think ATT realizes that we are witnessing a history making shift with mobile devices, and it's better to be on board now rather than later. The temporary setback of networks being bogged down is worth it when you'll be able to offer all of your new subscribers WiMax/4G in a couple years and greatly improve their experiences, and your image.
Far more data-intensive than buying/renting 720p movies from the iTunes store? I don't think so. I easily download 1-2 GB worth of video podcasts on my iPhone... I do not see how data usage on the iPad will be the least bit lower than on the average netbook or laptop. We will have to see what "unlimited" means though... I am pretty sure there will be some kind of a "fair use" cap, most likely around 5GB/mth, which would still be attractive.
The real killer here is the no-contract thing though... If you only need it while on vacation or very occasionally, you can save a fortune compared to a regular 24 months plan.
Since the article mentions "ongoing talks" between Verizon and Apple, your assumption is likely incorrect.
The reason why iPhone/iPad isn't on the Verizon network is probably just a business decision based on Verizon not willing to A.) give Apple full control over the iTunes Store/App Store and/or B.) not offer plan pricing that Apple finds competitive.
That's kind of what I had in mind when I said "ticked off Jobs." I suspect that they are at an impasse on exactly these types of issues, and the longer Verizon refuses to budge, and the more ads they run mocking the iPhone, the more personally Jobs will take this. And the more personally he takes it, the harder it will be to reach an agreement.
No, I did not, as in Germany 720p movies can only be rented on the Apple TV (and not bought at all until now), but I downloaded two standard definition movies (around 1.6-1.8 GB each) without problems (even if Apple says this is not possible, files over 10MB are supposed to require WiFi according to all information I can find). But as they have talked about watching 720p movies and "Full HD" YouTube material on the iPad, why shouldn't it be possible? You can easily generate multiple GBs of traffic, just by playing a few HD files on YouTube.
I think Verizon must have ticked off Jobs. We might not see the iPhone on Verizon for years.
I think that's true. When Steve was first trying to line up a carrier for the iPhone, Verizon wanted to control everything. Steve was not going to let that happen. I bet we will never see any Apple product on Verizon.
That's kind of what I had in mind when I said "ticked off Jobs." I suspect that they are at an impasse on exactly these types of issues, and the longer Verizon refuses to budge, and the more ads they run mocking the iPhone, the more personally Jobs will take this. And the more personally he takes it, the harder it will be to reach an agreement.
I doubt that Jobs is taking it personally. My guess is that he sees it entirely as a business decision.
If he took difficult business negotations personally, there is no way that Apple would be as successful as it is today. Trust me, I'm a very happy Apple stockholder and Steve has done a commendable job at increasing shareholder value.
Conversely, I'm certain that he probably hates the guts of some of his business partners, but he publicly keeps his mouth shut because doing otherwise would not benefit the company. Again, Jobs is capable of setting aside his emotions when business calls for it.
Steve Ballmer, Larry Ellison, Eric Schmidt, Mark Hurd, Paul Otellini. They are all capable of it, too.
Scott McNealy? Carly Fiorina? Jerry Yang? Questionable.
I can imagine ATT saying they would give Apple a great deal on iPad data plans, and keep the line on iPhone data plans, if Apple stops ALL talk of doing anything with Verizon. So perhaps no Verizon is in the cards for this Summer's iPhones, either.
So perhaps no Verizon is in the cards for this Summer's iPhones, either.
FWIW, the scuttlebutt surrounding the original iPhone launch was that AT&T had a 5-year exclusive contract with Apple. Contracts can always be renegotiated when it's beneficial to all parties, but it would take a lot for AT&T to want to lose a 5-year lock... and the iPad isn't it (yet).
Five years from June 2007, takes us to mid-2012, when 4G LTE should be widely available. Verizon could have a shot at the iPhone then, without Apple necessarily having to support Verizon's CDMA.
I think Verizon must have ticked off Jobs. We might not see the iPhone on Verizon for years.
If there ever is an Apple device for VZW, I think it will definitely wait until the 4G/LTE rollout. It just doesn't make sense to develop a device with CDMA/EVDO chips only to replace it with a CDMA/EVDO/LTE device less than a year later. (Source: Engadget reporting that VZW expects to have LTE in 30 markets this year, ramping up to almost everywhere by 2013.)
I'm hoping that some chipset maker (Qualcomm?) develops a "universal" 4G chipset that will support both suites of legacy technologies (CDMA/1X/EVDO and GSM/HSPA) in addition to LTE. This would allow Apple and other vendors to quickly and easily make a device that can literally go anywhere. But I'll believe it when I see it.
The other big technical issue is that CDMA devices typically don't have any concept of a SIM card. There is the UICC card standard that can store CSIM data instead of or in addition to SIM, USIM and ISIM data but from what I've been able to determine, these are only used for CDMA in China. As far as I can tell, CDMA systems everywhere else use non-removable storage to hold the network activation data. Without this key concept, you need to have a carrier explicitly activate the device (meaning they can also refuse to activate it) in order to use it with their contract.
Then again, if an hypothetical unlocked Apple CDMA/GSM hybrid device was designed for UICC cards, that might be enough pressure to convince Verizon and Sprint to start supporting UICC cards in general. But that, like a universal 4G chipset, is probably no more than wishful thinking.
But assuming all the above technical hurdles are passed, we still have the giant ego-clash to deal with:
Verizon historically insists that all handset makers customize their UI to fit VZW's standards. You have only to look at popular handsets from Motorola, Blackberry, LG and all the rest to see the extent that Verizon customizes the interface, even for the models where they don't mess around (much) with the feature set.
And going up against this is Apple, which is extremely proud of its groundbreaking UI research and almost certainly doesn't want to change any of it for any carrier.
I doubt Apple is going to budge - they already sell iPhones as fast as they can be made. Adding Verizon support won't change that - it might even hurt, since they'd end up adding at least one more model to the product line. So it would be hard to claim that they are leaving money on the table by not adding VZW (or anyone else, for that matter) as a carrier. Furthermore, Apple has a history of sacrificing market penetration in order to preserve its vision of what the product should be. Apple might not object to bundling an iPad with a Verizon-branded wallpaper or startup icon, or with some preloaded apps, and even a Verizon logo etched on the back-case below the Apple logo, but I don't think they will ever allow customization beyond that.
On the Verizon size, I think it will be money vs. ego. How much money will they stand to gain by selling iPads and iPhones? Keep in mind that we're talking about new customers and customers upgrading from ordinary phones. People switching from other VZW smartphones or laptop connectivity devices won't add any new monthly-contract money. The question will be if that dollar amount is big enough to convince them to swallow their pride and sell a device with little-to-no brand-customization.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacTel
You know it would be much easier for Apple to bring on T-Mobile than Verizon. T-Mobile's network is GSM. I liked T-Mobile when I was with them. I only left since my phone was issued by my employer and they use Verizon.
Well, the iPad is already unlocked, so if T-Mobile releases a micro-SIM card, it should work. But it's my understanding that T-Mobile's 3G network uses different frequencies from AT&T's and the iPad doesn't support T-Mobile's, so if you do that, you'll be stuck at EDGE speeds.
Hopefully, future iPads will support the full range of 3G frequencies, allowing T-Mobile customer to bring over their own SIM cards.
Of course, this is far more critical an issue for the iPhone (where the problem is locking, not choice of frequencies). With an iPad and its low-price no-contract data service, there may not be a compelling reason for a T-Mobile customer to not just subscribe to AT&T for iPad data, leaving his phone service where it already is.
Heaven forbid that VERIZON wants to CONTROL everything?
And why is it ok the STEVE / APPLE Control everything, other then the fact, it's their products?
And what is "Everything"? And who said Steve / Apple or Verizon wanted to control everything?
Oh, that was a rumor, I get it.
Skip
The Telcos have been in a battle to control more than the "dumb pipe" for years. Verizon especially has succeeded to this end through their various control initiatives and FiOS. While Apple's control isn't better than end-user control, to-date it has been significantly better than pure control by either content provider or the pipe provider.
FWIW, the scuttlebutt surrounding the original iPhone launch was that AT&T had a 5-year exclusive contract with Apple. ... takes us to mid-2012, when 4G LTE should be widely available. Verizon could have a shot at the iPhone then, without Apple necessarily having to support Verizon's CDMA.
The 5-year contract was always rumor. Pundits today are claiming that it was actually a 3-year contract, which means "some time this year".
As for 4G, you're still going to want backward compatibility to CDMA if you choose to support VZW customers. Not every cell will be upgraded and you don't want customers stuck in a "4G or nothing" scenario.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
Verizon will never get Apple products, period.
"Never" is a very long time. Lots of companies have gone broke betting that things would "never" happen.
Circumstances change, contracts expire and get re-negotiated, etc. "unlikely for this year" is a logical conclusion. "unlikely for the next 2-3 years" is logical but less probable. "never" is just meaningless hyperbole.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ncee
Heaven forbid that VERIZON wants to CONTROL everything?
And why is it ok the STEVE / APPLE Control everything, other then the fact, it's their products?
Apple gets slammed plenty of times when they try to exert control. Do you think developers like Apple's restrictions on what can be sold in the App Store? Do you think customers like having no other place to buy iPhone apps? They are also praised when they exert control that customers like (e.g. iTunes Store music sale policies). They have a strong vision for their products - which some like and some do not like - and they fight as hard as possible to bring that vision to customers. Right or wrong, that is the way they are.
Historically, VZW has ticked off lots of customers with their business practices. They customize the interface on every handset they sell. They often disable key features, either altogether, or charging extra to turn them on again. They do a lot of things customers don't like, but they get away with it because they've got the most reliable voice network in the US, and that counts for a lot.
We don't know why Apple hasn't made a VZW device yet. Maybe it's for technological reasons. Maybe it's because VZW and Apple have irreconcilable differences regarding product design. Maybe it's just because AT&T was first to sign up. We can make educated guesses based on what we know about the companies, but in the final analysis, that's all they are - educated guesses.
Comments
What good is NO DATA if the network is charging too much for the data plan in order to use it, so that the network doesn't get the iPad deal?
Good point.
It remains to be seen whether ATT is chasing margetshare at the expense of quality. Will they have enough revenue to continue upgrading it's network to handle the additoinal load these devices will add? Or will the quality suffer?
I think ATT realizes that we are witnessing a history making shift with mobile devices, and it's better to be on board now rather than later. The temporary setback of networks being bogged down is worth it when you'll be able to offer all of your new subscribers WiMax/4G in a couple years and greatly improve their experiences, and your image.
That is all!
Far more data-intensive than buying/renting 720p movies from the iTunes store? I don't think so. I easily download 1-2 GB worth of video podcasts on my iPhone... I do not see how data usage on the iPad will be the least bit lower than on the average netbook or laptop. We will have to see what "unlimited" means though... I am pretty sure there will be some kind of a "fair use" cap, most likely around 5GB/mth, which would still be attractive.
The real killer here is the no-contract thing though... If you only need it while on vacation or very occasionally, you can save a fortune compared to a regular 24 months plan.
You've downloaded 720p movies over 3G?
Since the article mentions "ongoing talks" between Verizon and Apple, your assumption is likely incorrect.
The reason why iPhone/iPad isn't on the Verizon network is probably just a business decision based on Verizon not willing to A.) give Apple full control over the iTunes Store/App Store and/or B.) not offer plan pricing that Apple finds competitive.
That's kind of what I had in mind when I said "ticked off Jobs." I suspect that they are at an impasse on exactly these types of issues, and the longer Verizon refuses to budge, and the more ads they run mocking the iPhone, the more personally Jobs will take this. And the more personally he takes it, the harder it will be to reach an agreement.
You've downloaded 720p movies over 3G?
No, I did not, as in Germany 720p movies can only be rented on the Apple TV (and not bought at all until now), but I downloaded two standard definition movies (around 1.6-1.8 GB each) without problems (even if Apple says this is not possible, files over 10MB are supposed to require WiFi according to all information I can find). But as they have talked about watching 720p movies and "Full HD" YouTube material on the iPad, why shouldn't it be possible? You can easily generate multiple GBs of traffic, just by playing a few HD files on YouTube.
I think Verizon must have ticked off Jobs. We might not see the iPhone on Verizon for years.
I think that's true. When Steve was first trying to line up a carrier for the iPhone, Verizon wanted to control everything. Steve was not going to let that happen. I bet we will never see any Apple product on Verizon.
That's kind of what I had in mind when I said "ticked off Jobs." I suspect that they are at an impasse on exactly these types of issues, and the longer Verizon refuses to budge, and the more ads they run mocking the iPhone, the more personally Jobs will take this. And the more personally he takes it, the harder it will be to reach an agreement.
I doubt that Jobs is taking it personally. My guess is that he sees it entirely as a business decision.
If he took difficult business negotations personally, there is no way that Apple would be as successful as it is today. Trust me, I'm a very happy Apple stockholder and Steve has done a commendable job at increasing shareholder value.
Conversely, I'm certain that he probably hates the guts of some of his business partners, but he publicly keeps his mouth shut because doing otherwise would not benefit the company. Again, Jobs is capable of setting aside his emotions when business calls for it.
Steve Ballmer, Larry Ellison, Eric Schmidt, Mark Hurd, Paul Otellini. They are all capable of it, too.
Scott McNealy? Carly Fiorina? Jerry Yang? Questionable.
Heaven forbid that VERIZON wants to CONTROL everything?
And why is it ok the STEVE / APPLE Control everything, other then the fact, it's their products?
And what is "Everything"? And who said Steve / Apple or Verizon wanted to control everything?
Oh, that was a rumor, I get it.
Skip
can get somekind of fame.. And he is always wrong, and
I don't know why appleinsider posts his crap all the time
if they know that he's usualy wrong.. I hope we never see the iPhone
on verizon, if only because they are a classless organization,
and useing garilla taktics against their customers and AT&T.
I hate verizon! they are nobetter that metro pcs.. I hope that they
go under soon.. They are what's bad in our wonderfull country!
All of their die hard fans are just DRINKING THE COOLAID!!
It seems to me that Clayton Morris is makeing stuff up just so that he
can get somekind of fame.. And he is always wrong, and
I don't know why appleinsider posts his crap all the time
if they know that he's usualy wrong.. I hope we never see the iPhone
on verizon, if only because they are a classless organization,
and useing garilla taktics against their customers and AT&T.
I hate verizon! they are nobetter that metro pcs.. I hope that they
go under soon.. They are what's bad in our wonderfull country!
All of their die hard fans are just DRINKING THE COOLAID!!
Dude read a dictionary sometime.
Seriously.
So perhaps no Verizon is in the cards for this Summer's iPhones, either.
FWIW, the scuttlebutt surrounding the original iPhone launch was that AT&T had a 5-year exclusive contract with Apple. Contracts can always be renegotiated when it's beneficial to all parties, but it would take a lot for AT&T to want to lose a 5-year lock... and the iPad isn't it (yet).
Five years from June 2007, takes us to mid-2012, when 4G LTE should be widely available. Verizon could have a shot at the iPhone then, without Apple necessarily having to support Verizon's CDMA.
Folks ?
Heaven forbid that VERIZON wants to CONTROL everything?
And why is it ok the STEVE / APPLE Control everything, other then the fact, it's their products?
And what is "Everything"? And who said Steve / Apple or Verizon wanted to control everything?
Oh, that was a rumor, I get it.
Skip
Yeah!! All of these web sites live because of dumb ass rumors! People are full of shit
all the time.. Truth be told this site and all the other sites run on 100 percent
rumors, speculation, lies, and good old fashion bullshit!
Nobody realy ever knows what's going on..
Folks …
Heaven forbid that VERIZON wants to CONTROL everything?
And why is it ok the STEVE / APPLE Control everything, other then the fact, it's their products?
And what is "Everything"? And who said Steve / Apple or Verizon wanted to control everything?
Oh, that was a rumor, I get it.
Skip
Apple broke through that juggernaut with the AT&T Deal.
Verizon will never get Apple products, period.
I think Verizon must have ticked off Jobs. We might not see the iPhone on Verizon for years.
If there ever is an Apple device for VZW, I think it will definitely wait until the 4G/LTE rollout. It just doesn't make sense to develop a device with CDMA/EVDO chips only to replace it with a CDMA/EVDO/LTE device less than a year later. (Source: Engadget reporting that VZW expects to have LTE in 30 markets this year, ramping up to almost everywhere by 2013.)
I'm hoping that some chipset maker (Qualcomm?) develops a "universal" 4G chipset that will support both suites of legacy technologies (CDMA/1X/EVDO and GSM/HSPA) in addition to LTE. This would allow Apple and other vendors to quickly and easily make a device that can literally go anywhere. But I'll believe it when I see it.
The other big technical issue is that CDMA devices typically don't have any concept of a SIM card. There is the UICC card standard that can store CSIM data instead of or in addition to SIM, USIM and ISIM data but from what I've been able to determine, these are only used for CDMA in China. As far as I can tell, CDMA systems everywhere else use non-removable storage to hold the network activation data. Without this key concept, you need to have a carrier explicitly activate the device (meaning they can also refuse to activate it) in order to use it with their contract.
Then again, if an hypothetical unlocked Apple CDMA/GSM hybrid device was designed for UICC cards, that might be enough pressure to convince Verizon and Sprint to start supporting UICC cards in general. But that, like a universal 4G chipset, is probably no more than wishful thinking.
But assuming all the above technical hurdles are passed, we still have the giant ego-clash to deal with:
Verizon historically insists that all handset makers customize their UI to fit VZW's standards. You have only to look at popular handsets from Motorola, Blackberry, LG and all the rest to see the extent that Verizon customizes the interface, even for the models where they don't mess around (much) with the feature set.
And going up against this is Apple, which is extremely proud of its groundbreaking UI research and almost certainly doesn't want to change any of it for any carrier.
I doubt Apple is going to budge - they already sell iPhones as fast as they can be made. Adding Verizon support won't change that - it might even hurt, since they'd end up adding at least one more model to the product line. So it would be hard to claim that they are leaving money on the table by not adding VZW (or anyone else, for that matter) as a carrier. Furthermore, Apple has a history of sacrificing market penetration in order to preserve its vision of what the product should be. Apple might not object to bundling an iPad with a Verizon-branded wallpaper or startup icon, or with some preloaded apps, and even a Verizon logo etched on the back-case below the Apple logo, but I don't think they will ever allow customization beyond that.
On the Verizon size, I think it will be money vs. ego. How much money will they stand to gain by selling iPads and iPhones? Keep in mind that we're talking about new customers and customers upgrading from ordinary phones. People switching from other VZW smartphones or laptop connectivity devices won't add any new monthly-contract money. The question will be if that dollar amount is big enough to convince them to swallow their pride and sell a device with little-to-no brand-customization.
You know it would be much easier for Apple to bring on T-Mobile than Verizon. T-Mobile's network is GSM. I liked T-Mobile when I was with them. I only left since my phone was issued by my employer and they use Verizon.
Well, the iPad is already unlocked, so if T-Mobile releases a micro-SIM card, it should work. But it's my understanding that T-Mobile's 3G network uses different frequencies from AT&T's and the iPad doesn't support T-Mobile's, so if you do that, you'll be stuck at EDGE speeds.
Hopefully, future iPads will support the full range of 3G frequencies, allowing T-Mobile customer to bring over their own SIM cards.
Of course, this is far more critical an issue for the iPhone (where the problem is locking, not choice of frequencies). With an iPad and its low-price no-contract data service, there may not be a compelling reason for a T-Mobile customer to not just subscribe to AT&T for iPad data, leaving his phone service where it already is.
Folks ?
Heaven forbid that VERIZON wants to CONTROL everything?
And why is it ok the STEVE / APPLE Control everything, other then the fact, it's their products?
And what is "Everything"? And who said Steve / Apple or Verizon wanted to control everything?
Oh, that was a rumor, I get it.
Skip
The Telcos have been in a battle to control more than the "dumb pipe" for years. Verizon especially has succeeded to this end through their various control initiatives and FiOS. While Apple's control isn't better than end-user control, to-date it has been significantly better than pure control by either content provider or the pipe provider.
FWIW, the scuttlebutt surrounding the original iPhone launch was that AT&T had a 5-year exclusive contract with Apple. ... takes us to mid-2012, when 4G LTE should be widely available. Verizon could have a shot at the iPhone then, without Apple necessarily having to support Verizon's CDMA.
The 5-year contract was always rumor. Pundits today are claiming that it was actually a 3-year contract, which means "some time this year".
As for 4G, you're still going to want backward compatibility to CDMA if you choose to support VZW customers. Not every cell will be upgraded and you don't want customers stuck in a "4G or nothing" scenario.
Verizon will never get Apple products, period.
"Never" is a very long time. Lots of companies have gone broke betting that things would "never" happen.
Circumstances change, contracts expire and get re-negotiated, etc. "unlikely for this year" is a logical conclusion. "unlikely for the next 2-3 years" is logical but less probable. "never" is just meaningless hyperbole.
Heaven forbid that VERIZON wants to CONTROL everything?
And why is it ok the STEVE / APPLE Control everything, other then the fact, it's their products?
Apple gets slammed plenty of times when they try to exert control. Do you think developers like Apple's restrictions on what can be sold in the App Store? Do you think customers like having no other place to buy iPhone apps? They are also praised when they exert control that customers like (e.g. iTunes Store music sale policies). They have a strong vision for their products - which some like and some do not like - and they fight as hard as possible to bring that vision to customers. Right or wrong, that is the way they are.
Historically, VZW has ticked off lots of customers with their business practices. They customize the interface on every handset they sell. They often disable key features, either altogether, or charging extra to turn them on again. They do a lot of things customers don't like, but they get away with it because they've got the most reliable voice network in the US, and that counts for a lot.
We don't know why Apple hasn't made a VZW device yet. Maybe it's for technological reasons. Maybe it's because VZW and Apple have irreconcilable differences regarding product design. Maybe it's just because AT&T was first to sign up. We can make educated guesses based on what we know about the companies, but in the final analysis, that's all they are - educated guesses.
It seems to me that Clayton Morris is makeing stuff up just so that he
can get somekind of fame.. And he is always wrong, and
I don't know why appleinsider posts his crap all the time
if they know that he's usualy wrong.. I hope we never see the iPhone
on verizon, if only because they are a classless organization,
and useing garilla taktics against their customers and AT&T.
I hate verizon! they are nobetter that metro pcs.. I hope that they
go under soon.. They are what's bad in our wonderfull country!
All of their die hard fans are just DRINKING THE COOLAID!!
And this type of illiterate rapid foaming at the mouth type of post is what you get when you watch too much Keith Olbermann...
Somebody get this Son0fsocal a real education please!