HAMRICKBLOG

A Verizon User’s Struggle on iPhone Day

It’s Monday, June 7th, 2010 — a day many have had circled on their calendars for quite some time.

Yes, today is the day of the WWDC opening keynote from Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

So it’s just another iPhone announcement, right? Even without the countless leaks and unprecedented premature information we’ve seen this year, no one in a healthy state of mind could make a plausible argument against the certainty that Apple will be launching a device this summer.

But there’s one key piece of potential info that has me particularly anxious this morning. Will Verizon Wireless finally see an iPhone this year?

Headlines have flown back and forth in recent months that all basically say Verizon customers want the iPhone. First of all, I don’t know whose decision it was to spend money on a study like that. But if I’m ever asked to conduct a survey to find out if bears relieve themselves in the woods, I know who to look up for funding.

The answer is yes. And it’s not just Verizon customers either, while we’re stating the obvious. There are, without a doubt, Sprint customers who wouldn’t mind rocking an iPhone, too. And T-Mobile customers, well, they’ve been doing it, so that’s not even a question any more.

I personally am a Verizon customer currently, and never before have I been so tormented by an iPhone launch in the three years of the platform’s existence.

Why, you ask? Because, for the first time, it seems like there may actually be a solid chance of seeing a CDMA iPhone become a reality. Sure, there have been rumors since the day after Jobs first announced his company’s plans to dabble in the wireless phone industry. But we’ve all seen how those rumors panned out.

Your next line of thinking might be, “Why have you not just switched to AT&T? You’re obviously a closet fanboy.”

Well, quite simply, until last year, I was still working in my fifth year in wireless retail management. I worked for several carriers — but never AT&T. Being the true devotee that I was, I avoided the seduction of the iPhone based on principle.

But that’s not the case anymore, and damn it all, I’m ready to see what I’ve been missing. I’ve been a pretty die-hard BlackBerry user for years now but truthfully, the platform just isn’t keeping up with my ever-growing smartphone wish list. Sure, I’ll probably always keep one around, but I fear I can no longer remain resilient in the good fight.

Verizon has been, for the most part, a fairly reliable option where I live, and from what I hear, AT&T is equally mediocre here. I’d prefer to (if not solely for laziness) just stay where I am and use whatever phone I please, but that darn CDMA network makes it tough sometimes.

If there is no Verizon iPhone, what’s really stopping me from switching? A prorated ETF? I can swing that. I suppose there is always that pesky Verizon marketing department painting those idyllic pictures and planting its unsubstantiated hooks in me. Wait — I worked at Sprint long enough to see through those tactics.

I’ll be honest here; probably the only thing that might convince me to hold out hope for my current ball-and-chain is the prospect that the recently-rumored DROID follow-ups from Motorola and HTC bring. I never thought I would go for an Android phone but all fragmentation aside, Android is a whole new ball game, even in just the last six months.

So what on Earth do I do? If Apple makes no mention of Verizon today, do I start making plans to bounce? Will that mean we’re looking at 2011, or worse, 2012 before the iPhone finds its way to multiple carriers in the U.S.? After all, AT&T was supposed to have exclusivity for five years.

What if the rumblings prove true that a Verizon version will be available this year, just not until the fall? Will Apple tell us that now? I have to believe that it absolutely will not.

One of two things will happen if 2010 is indeed the year Apple’s iPhone escapes from AT&T’s clutches. Either all iPhones on all carriers will be launching at the same time and we’ll find out about them today, or the AT&T version gets announced alone today and there will be no mention of the follow-up until closer to its launch — or until Vietnamese blogs start leaking them; whichever comes first.

In all likelihood, the latter will be the case. AT&T’s iPhone will be launching alone this month and, if other models come, they’ll come later in the year. It’s too convenient that AT&T just increased its smartphone ETF and gave nearly all iPhone 3GS owners the ability to upgrade with a full two-year discount.

AT&T is doing everything in its power to prevent a mass exodus down the line, not preparing to do battle on launch day.

Today is definitely a day of excitement, as well as a day of anguish and inner struggle.

Hey, Steve — try to make it easy for me, will ya?

This post originally appeared on Know Your Cell on June 7th, 2010.

Tags: Apple, AT&T, Competition, iOS, iPhone, iPhone 4, Latest, Leaks, Smartphone, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, WWDC, WWDC 2010