Verizon iPhone 4 to be released this January. We think. Possibly.
Anonymous inside sources say so, so you know it has to be true.
Rumors have flared up again over the possibility of a Verizon iPhone. The most recent reports say that the so far fictitious Verizon iPhone is due this January. This was reported at the end of last month by Bloomberg (skeptical responses followed). However, yesterday blogger John Gruber at Daring Fireball seems to have found some inside scoop. He claims that N92 is the code name for an engineering test unit of a Verizon iPhone 4.
Gruber suspects that the CDMA iPhone 4 will be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2011. Source had told him that the prototype is not yet in production, but is still going through engineering verification testing. The next few months would be just about enough time to get this supposed iPhone 4 out to stores by January.
However, Gruber continues to say that this does not mean that Verizon would be the assured carrier. The iPhone could go to other CDMA carriers, such as Sprint. Also, there are heftier CDMA markets outside of the US; as compared to the 164 million CDMA subscribers in North America, there are 36 million in Latin America and more than 300 million in the Asia-Pacific region. Apple may choose to target those markets instead.
It would be healthy to remain dubious of these reports, regardless of how inside the inside sources are. With some regularity in the past few years, equally convincing but disappointing rumors have burst all over the blogosphere. For your entertainment, Harry McCracken of Technologizer has compiled nostalgic look back at the naïve technology rumors of yesteryear.
[Photo courtesy of Geeky Gadgets.]
