Its the same problem the Palm Pre faces. They are launching on the Sprint CDMA network. Until they launch the GSM version its just an interesting toy to us Europeans…

To say the Apple has no interest in starting up business with Verizon is flat out wrong. They’re practically drooling over that pie of market share–anyone can see that. Fact is, when someone has a cellphone, they’re going to want to make calls, and sometimes AT&T can’t even deliver that. For this, people need CDMA, which is still inherently a better technology despite repeat GSM technology updates. As for data, all technologies are currently sufficient for the mobile platform. I don’t care what you say about rolling out the new technologies like LTE, because the truth is, every time a new data technology comes out, a carrier only utilitizes about 10-30% of the capability. EVDO Rev. A is capable of around 6Mbps throughput, and right now Verizon is limiting it to around 768Kbps-1.5Mbps. Same story goes for UMTS, you’d be amazingly lucky to get anywhere near even 50% of its theoretical limit. No one needs more than 1.5Mbps on a mobile phone with the most robust of mobile services, tethering excluded.

That said, NTE is the next logical step, but it’s only there for healthy network competition and the ability to provide the gimmicky “4G” acronym to subscribers. Ultimately, I don’t think that the technology discussion really has any bearing whatsoever on whether or not Apple wants to roll out to Verizon, as they would do well even to roll it out as-is with a CDMA radio. To say that it’s not going to happen is just plain naive

How does creating a CDMA version of the iPhone make it any worse? Thats like saying that Apple compromised the standard of the iPhone by opening it to Windows.

Adding CDMA will not be a major technical change, and will not add all that much towards testing and maintenance costs simply because the cell phone functions of the iPhone form a very small subset of the iPhone’s abilities.

The current cell phone standards (CDMA, GSM) are extremely old, well known, and with limited functionalities, making supporting them extremely easy.

Like others have said, I think the most likely scenario is that Apple IS talking to Verizon, but not about an iPhone…

Apple could easily produce a CDMA iPhone if they wanted to. Whether they choose to do so or not will not be for technological reasons or minor financial expenditures. It will be certainly be based on ulterior motives known only to Apple executives. I think AT&T have pretty much captured all the low hanging fruit and the rest of us still on Sprint, Verizon, and other carriers will stay where we are. I was with AT&T before I switched to Sprint and I had more dropped calls than completed calls. Both Sprint and Verizon have offered 3G EVDO coverage for a few years now and AT&T are still stuck on EDGE with no plans for any 3G service anytime soon. Even if they offered better coverage and 3G service to boot, I would be an idiot to give up my Sprint $30 SERO plan with unlimited data, unlimited text, and 500 anytime minutes with free calls starting at 7PM for a plan with fewer minutes, no unlimited text messaging, and anytime minutes starting 2 hours later at about 2.5 times the monthly cost. If Apple releases an iPhone for Sprint I will definitely get one, but until then there is no way in hell I will consider going back to AT&T and pay over twice as much for far inferior service and plan.

I think the “dyingness” of CDMA is a little oversensationalized. True, its a dead-end technology, but it still will be used for a long time by a lot of people who are likely to buy an iPhone. The replacement (LTE) will be years and decades into replacing CDMA.

Also, I’m not using Gruber as an appeal to authority. I just felt that the last couple of paragraphs in that column reflect my opinion more lucidly than I have written down.