New Verizon iPhone to be released June or July
Up until today we speculated that the new iPhone will be dubbed iPhone 4G and will debut around June or July. Well folks, if the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, Apple’s new device will be called iPhone HD and will “debut this summer”. But it looks like Cupertino will now target Big Red customers too, as we’re hearing they are “working on another model for US mobile phone operator Verizon Wireless.”
If the new iPhone HD will be manufactured as before by Taiwanese contract manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry, the CDMA iPhone (which will probably be available on Sprint and Verizon) is supposedly being manufactured by Pegatron Technology — with rumors saying that Pegatron will begin mass producing the device sometime in September.
Now Verizon iPhone 4G reports heat up once again. It all started in January 2010. In advance of the (then unannounced iPad) Apple press conference, industry analysts contended that Apple would announce (a) a launch of a new tablet product and (b) the expansion of iPhone onto theVerizon and Sprint Networks.
The rest is history.
iPad launched that day. But nowhere in the Apple (AAPL) press conference was a mention of iPhone. In the weeks that followed, LALATE updated to you that (a) reports continued to maintain the launch date would be fall or June 2010, (b) the exclusivity contract expiring would not be renewed and (c)Verizon 4G tests will result in iPhone heading to Verizon’s 4G network first.
The most important determining factor is that exclusivity contract. Later this year, that contract between Apple and AT&T does expire. It’s that expiration that analysts predict will result in iPhone coming to more networks, similar to how Nexus One and Android products are now spreading.
