Next Apple iPhone (Verizon model) hits “AP” field test stage, iPhone 5 hits “EVT” stage?
One of our solid Apple sources has just let us know some pretty interesting (and exciting) information surrounding Apple's upcoming iPhone devices. For starters, we have been told that iPhone model 3,2 …
Context & Ripple Effects
Reports of a Verizon-bound iPhone have persisted through 2010: a March account said Apple was preparing two new iPhones, including one possibly aimed at Verizon, and August coverage placed a Verizon iPhone and next iPad near field testing. The same testing language had appeared for an earlier iPhone generation in Apple's 2009 field-testing report.
This report is still unconfirmed, but it attaches purported development stages to both a carrier-specific model and a successor iPhone. That matters because it frames the Verizon question as a product-validation process rather than only a recurring launch rumor.
First-order effects
- If the report is accurate, Apple and Verizon move from planning a carrier-specific iPhone to AP field testing, putting device performance and carrier integration under evaluation.
- The reported EVT status for the next iPhone would place Apple’s successor hardware on a separate, earlier development track from the Verizon-oriented model.
Second-order effects
- A Verizon-specific test program would sharpen the competitive significance of Apple’s U.S. carrier distribution, because the rumored model would be designed around a second major carrier rather than a single-channel launch path.
- Running carrier adaptation alongside successor development would make Apple’s release planning more dependent on whether both tracks clear their respective tests, rather than on a single handset schedule.
Third-order effects
- If repeated Verizon-testing reports prove accurate, the iPhone business is moving toward carrier diversification as a product-development constraint, with network validation becoming part of how Apple sequences hardware releases.
- The recurrence of field-testing reports—from the prior iPhone generation through the Verizon rumors—suggests that pre-launch testing milestones are becoming an important signal in the handset supply chain, though they do not confirm a launch.
The trend: Apple’s iPhone development is increasingly being framed around parallel hardware and carrier-validation tracks, rather than a single device for a single U.S. distribution path.