News

Verizon iPhone 4 Coming in February

• By Keith Ward
• January 11, 2011

What has long been rumored and suspected is now a fact: Verizon customers will soon be able to get their very own iPhone. Verizon and Apple announced today that they're offering the phone on the Verizon network, opening up the market for Apple's smartphone to a much greater degree.

The iPhone 4 will be available on Feb. 10. Existing, "qualified" Verizon customers, the company says, can pre-order the phone Feb. 3, ahead of general availability. Previously, the iPhone was available only to AT&T customers, a song that has remained the same for the five years since the phone's introduction.

The iPhone's price will remain the same: $199 for the 16GB model, and $299 for the 32GB version (with a two-year commitment, which also mirrors the AT&T contract.) Some customers may be disappointed to learn that the Verizon iPhone will be a CDMA/EVDO model, which does not offer 4G speeds. Washington Post blogger Rob Pegoraro quoted Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook as saying that the first-generation 4G chips ""force some design compromises that we wouldn't make." LTE-model phones offer 4G service.

Verizon has the U.S.'s largest cell network, and adding the iPhone to it is a coup for both companies. iPhone's marketshare has been growing much more slowly than that of rival Android, at least partly because it was tethered to just one network in AT&T. Verizon, for its part, has been unable to offer to consumers what many feel is the premium smartphone available.