Exclusive: Sprint iPad shows up in Best Buy's database
If you were keeping score during Apple's iPad keynote on Wednesday, you noticed AT&T and Verizon listed amongst the carriers that will get the new iPad, but what about Sprint? It's going to be rockin' LTE in the not-too-distant future, after all.
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's Wednesday keynote confirmed only AT&T and Verizon as launch carriers for the new Retina-display iPad, following February's Verizon and AT&T 4G iPad announcement — leaving Sprint, which is still building out its own LTE network, conspicuously absent. A Sprint-branded iPad now surfacing in Best Buy's internal inventory database suggests that absence may be temporary rather than a snub.
The leak also fits a familiar pattern: retail systems have repeatedly outed Sprint device deals before official word, including an inventory screen pegging the iPhone 5 for Sprint at Radio Shack last October. Best Buy itself has history here, having bundled Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T MiFis with iPads back in December 2010. The story traveled widely on pickup, with CNET, AppleInsider, Phone Arena, and MacNN among the outlets running it.
First-order effects
- If the database entry is accurate, Sprint joins AT&T and Verizon as a third US carrier for the new iPad, narrowing what had looked like a two-carrier launch window announced at the keynote.
- Best Buy is positioned to sell the Sprint iPad SKU at or near launch, giving the retailer a differentiated carrier lineup against rivals stuck with the officially announced pair.
Second-order effects
- AT&T and Verizon lose the exclusive early positioning they gained from the keynote announcement, forcing all three carriers to compete on iPad data-plan pricing rather than availability.
- For Sprint, carrying the iPad becomes a showcase for its in-progress LTE buildout — the same network it leaned on when pitching devices like the EVO View tablet at CTIA last year.
Third-order effects
- Retail inventory databases are hardening into a de facto pre-announcement channel for carrier deals, letting partners' systems telegraph Apple lineup decisions before keynotes do.
- If every national carrier ends up stocking the same flagship tablets, carrier differentiation shifts from device access to network performance and plan economics — a structural squeeze on the smaller carriers' margins.
The trend: US carriers are racing to add Apple's LTE iPad to their rosters, turning tablet availability from a differentiator into table stakes as Sprint's LTE rollout catches up to Verizon and AT&T.