As everyone now knows, Apple is now allowed to give the iPhone to anyone it wants since it ended its contract of exclusive sales to AT&T with the debut of the iPhone 4 on the Verizon network. However, there’s no reason AT&T has to just sell to Verizon. Already, rumors are flying that say that the next iPhone could possibly be available for sale on all four of the major mobile carriers.
It’s a little odd looking back to the time when the iPhone was just coming out. At that time, Apple needed some assistance and AT&T did them a favor by helping them by promoting and advertising the new product. These days, it’s the very opposite, the phone companies are the ones who are doing whatever they can to get an iPhone product of their very own.
Even though Verizon got its own version of the iPhone 4, it wasn’t as successful as they had hoped. It did set sales records, but it wasn’t as good of sales as everyone had hyped it up to be.
On the day it came out, there were not really any majorly long lines at either the Apple or the Verizon stores. Maybe it was because the iPhone 4 wasn’t anything new. Of course there were plenty of Verizon customers who couldn’t wait to get a hold of it, and people who bought it because they didn’t want to get one from on AT&T. But mostly, the crowds of people who couldn’t wait to get an iPhone 4 right this very moment had gotten one from AT&T.
When the iPhone 5 comes out, it could end up being an historical event. If it indeed comes out on several phone carriers at once, it should end up being a sales day that no one has ever seen in the past.
There’s nothing out there so far that shows if Apple plans to give the next iPhone to anyone other than Verizon or AT&T. But, there was talk that Apple was negotiating with T-Mobile. And because Verizon and Sprint work on the same type of mobile network, it would not be hard at all to get a Sprint iPhone out that works.
Only time will tell the end of this story.
