Your Verizon iPhone Roadmap

The day is finally upon us; Verizon is getting the iPhone.  Verizon Wireless sent out an invitation Friday to an event Tuesday in New York City.  The invitation had no information about what it was about, but on the heals of Verizon just giving a huge keynote at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, it was clear to everyone that it would be an iPhone announcement.  Sure enough, the Wall Street Journal, one of the most accurate sources regarding Apple, reported hours later that Verizon would be announcing a version of the iPhone that runs on their CDMA network.  The only thing in question now is whether Steve Jobs or some other Apple executive will be present at the event.

So what’s next?  What will the next month and year look like for iPhone releases?  What specific phone is coming to Verizon?  What updates will there be in the next year or so?  And finally, when will those updates come?

This article was originally intended to start by claiming that there would be a Verizon iPhone announcement within weeks.  Verizon clearly beat me to the punch on that, but there are still a number of unanswered questions about Tuesday and beyond.  What follows is definitely speculation on my part, but speculation that I feel is well-grounded in careful observation about how Apple operates and iterates their products.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011:

Verizon announces a CDMA version of the iPhone 4.  Previous iPhones have all run on GSM, the international standard for cellular technology that AT&T also happens to use.  This CDMA version may have a slightly redesigned exterior, but will be very close in overall design to the current GSM iPhone 4.  It would be very odd for Apple to create and release a new iPhone for release on just another worldwide carrier.  Anyone expecting this to be an iPhone 5 or an exclusive white iPhone doesn’t show any regard for the fact that the Verizon story is big here in the U.S., but small in international scope where almost every country with the iPhone has multiple carriers offering it.  This will also not be an LTE or 4G iPhone as that technology is not ready and still in its infancy.

The Verizon iPhone will be available within weeks of the announcement and will follow similar traditional subsidized prices of $199 and $299.

June/July 2011:

Apple will hold its traditional Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino.  The keynote address will focus primarily on a new version of iOS and the introduction of a new iPhone (for now, the “iPhone 5″).  This new iPhone will most like NOT be an LTE-capable device.  There are a few reasons for this, the most compelling being that LTE will not be pervasive at all by this summer.  Verizon’s network, some regional networks, and perhaps a few countries will have LTE, but not enough to merit designing a phone around it.  The technology needed will be more expensive and possibly just large enough that Apple will not invest the time needed to cram it into their phone with all of the radio bands that are still needed for 2g and 3G networks.  This will be similar to the manner in which Apple launched a 2G iPhone in 2007 when 3G had just come on the scene in a big way.

Apple will also build a CDMA version of the iPhone 5 for Verizon and release it at the same time.  The CDMA iPhone 4 will drop to $99 just as previous versions of the iPhone have always done.  For anyone wanting to whine that it’s unfair that Apple would release a new iPhone six months after first arriving on Verizon, consider that worldwide carriers have constantly adopted the iPhone at different times of the year with no regard for Apple’s yearly release schedule.  What this does mean, however, is that anyone in a contract or who can wait until the summer will perhaps be better served by waiting until the release of the iPhone 5.  Given that the iPhone 5 probably won’t be a quantum leap forward, though, anyone who has been holding off upgrading to a smartphone or waiting to jump to an iPhone should just go ahead and get an iPhone in January.  There’s always a new and better phone around the corner, but pent-up demand on Verizon will drive a lot of sales.  Everyone has to make their own decisions based on their individual needs.

June/July 2012:

Apple will finally release an LTE version of the iPhone.  By 2012, it will feel like Apple is late to the game and Verizon Droid users across America will deride it by saying “Big deal, my Droid Indescript been using LTE since 2011.”  The mainstream media, however, will make a big deal out of the release and this new phone will be able to tap into LTE networks on AT&T, Verizon, and countries all across the world.

Because Verizon will likely not have their entire network blanketed by LTE at this point, Apple may still choose to build a version of the phone with CDMA and LTE included.  This could possibly be the last version of the iPhone that is made in a separate, Verizon-specific form.

Takeaway:

Of course, all of these predictions will be proven correct or incorrect over the next few years, but this is a roadmap that consumers can likely count on.  What will also be interesting to see if whether or not Verizon can somehow pay Apple to keep the iPhone off of the other networks in the U.S., Sprint and T-Mobile.  Those networks also have their own unique challenges for Apple.  Going forward, the most-asked question of “When will Verizon get the iPhone?” appears finally ready to go away, and that… is the most important takeaway.

***Update***

Although I didn’t mention it, it is possible that the new Verizon iPhone or the iPhone 5 in Summer 2011 could be global phones, phones that run both on CDMA and GSM networks overseas.  I don’t think that path is terribly likely because the required chipsets are a bit larger, but it’s not impossible.  Again, the answers will come in time.