Apple Will Take A Pass On 4G Networks For The iPhone In 2011— Sorry Verizon and AT&T
Sorry Verizon and AT&T — Back in August I broke the news that Apple was lining up a component purchase of several million chipsets from Qualcomm for a CDMA-powered Verizon iPhone due in January.
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands at the end of a year-long rumor arc: AppleInsider reported in November 2009 that a Verizon iPhone was coming, Business Week reported in December that Verizon was preparing for one, and TechCrunch's own August reporting claimed Apple had lined up several million Qualcomm chipsets for a CDMA iPhone due in January — a rumor Daring Fireball's 'January Jones' post kept alive. What's new here is the negative space around that device: Apple has reportedly decided no iPhone ships with 4G support next year.
That matters because both carriers are mid-buildout on their LTE networks, and the syndicated pickup from AppleInsider frames the CDMA handset as potentially among the first to offer concurrent voice and data — meaning the Verizon iPhone story is now about what the phone does do (3G, possibly simultaneous calls and data) as much as what it doesn't.
First-order effects
- Verizon and AT&T enter 2011 with newly lit LTE networks but no iPhone to showcase them, leaving their fastest spectrum dependent on Android and other handsets for flagship demand.
- Qualcomm's rumored chipset order positions it as the sole radio supplier for the CDMA variant, a socket previously split between Infineon-built GSM radios on AT&T.
Second-order effects
- With no LTE iPhone, the two carriers must differentiate on what the 3G device does offer — concurrent voice and data on Verizon's CDMA network would directly attack AT&T's most-mocked GSM limitation.
- AT&T's exclusivity loss stops being cushioned by technology parity: a Verizon-bound iPhone running only 3G keeps the devices comparable, so the switch decision rests purely on network experience rather than features.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Apple treats each radio-generation transition as a cost-and-power tradeoff to be skipped until components mature, structurally ceding the 'first on LTE' marketing window to rivals like Verizon's Android lineup.
- Carriers end up funding multibillion-dollar network builds ahead of any guaranteed flagship device, weakening the leverage that single-carrier exclusivity once gave them over Apple's roadmap.
The trend: Apple is choosing to trail each cellular generation by a cycle, adopting new radios only after carrier buildouts and component economics mature rather than racing to be first.