Verizon getting a CDMA iPhone that runs Windows Mobile, clears acne

Rumors are coming fast and furious today citing unnamed tipsters that Apple is hard at work hammering out a CDMA iPhone for its friends at Verizon to be announced and released next year, the carrier it had initially approached about carrying the device back in 2005. Way we see it, though, 2009 ain't 2005; Apple's wielding boatloads more power in the wireless biz than it was before the first model launched, the industry's economics have changed, and technology roadmaps have been rewritten.

So why isn't this happening, exactly? First, Apple appears to be having no trouble finding enough customers (carriers, that is) to keep iPhone 3G production at a nice clip. Second, CDMA represents a minute fraction of the world's mobile customer base that GSM / UMTS does -- no matter how big Verizon, Sprint, Telus, Bell, KDDI au, and the remaining CDMA stalwarts may be. Third, CDMA is a dying technology that will be finished off in the early part of the next decade as networks make the migration to LTE and other 4G platforms. Fourth, we have to believe Apple would sooner pour its engineering efforts into advancing the iPhone platform in the same direction as the world's networks than divert considerable resources to busting out a one-off special.

Might this mythical CDMA iPhone yet exist? Yeah, Verizon's a huge carrier, and yes, stranger things have happened -- but until Steve and Ivan get on stage together at Macworld 2009, we're not buying it.

[rfannon @ Sep 29th 2008 3:54PM]

I haz ur I-phone please?

[Christy McGrory @ Sep 29th 2008 3:58PM]

No. Just Get Out.

[Flashpoint @ Sep 29th 2008 10:06PM]

VZNAVIGATOR might finally bring us turn by turn directions.

[erhan @ Sep 29th 2008 3:57PM]

Let the ware between the t-r-o-l-s begin.


run while u still can

[erhan @ Sep 29th 2008 3:58PM]

*war
srry

[aaron @ Sep 29th 2008 4:05PM]

@erhan

Try again...umm again...

[i.c. weiner @ Sep 29th 2008 5:32PM]

You know what i don't get? Why people abbreviate sorry to srry. what's the point its one letter, unlike lol or wtf, which has a right to be abbreviated. Whoo, been wanting to rant on that for some time now!

[AKA_Ben @ Sep 29th 2008 3:57PM]

I think this would be viable for Apple. It can't be that hard to throw a CDMA chipset into a slightly larger iPhone, call it new, and sell it for a few years until everyone gets onboard with LTE - can it?

[Kris @ Sep 29th 2008 4:09PM]

Engadget is very negative towards CDMA today. As it stands, CDMA is currently superior to the available GSM technologies. Since Verizon and Sprint have an insane amount of business users (the folks Apple wants to grab up) as well as 3G available in more places than AT&T, it seems like a no-brainer to me that they would want to jump on with Verizon and/or Sprint.

Look at it this way: Do you want to invest $100,000 into creating a CDMA version then sell several million CDMA phones or is it better to save that $100,000 since CDMA will eventually go away anyway?

Hell, no matter which way you look at it, technology will always move to something superior. You could make the argument that something far better than LTE will come along so what's the point?

[zephxiii @ Sep 29th 2008 4:47PM]

UMTS/HSPA(WCDMA) is actually superior to CDMA, its just that AT&T does a shit job of implementing it.

[Big Al @ Sep 29th 2008 4:55PM]

yeah... Or apple could invest in that $100,000 in improving their current 3g model (flash, mms, copy and paste, etc.)

One thing people seem to be forgetting is how big the GSM market is. CDMA has a subscriber base of several hundred million people. GSM has billions. Apple's MO has always been to target the masses. If they wanted to please everyone, they would have put more codec support in their iPods, or improve its audio quality.

And having WinMO on the iPhone is very doubtful. Apple refuses to pay to put Flash on their phones. Why on Earth would they pay for another OS when theirs is just as good, if not better??

[nate @ Sep 29th 2008 5:15PM]

Pick up any networking book and you will find that CDMA (to GSM which is the point that was being made afaik) is indeed the technically superior technology. Hence why GSM chose a CDMA variant (W-CDMA) as its upgrade path. BTW, W-CDMA is equivalent to CDMA2000 3x and ev-do rev. C (UMB) is superior to LTE but as we have seen in the past there are many reasons that a superior technology can loose.

[Brad @ Sep 29th 2008 5:54PM]

It is kind of surprising how anti-CDMA Engadget (at least Chris Ziegler) is in this post. CDMA provides significantly higher bandwidth and more efficiency than GSM. This is why CDMA carriers are able to offer a much more rapid roll-out of 3G services than GSM carriers are.

And yeah, current CDMA technology will be phased out in the next decade, in favor of next-generation CDMA. Just like current-generation GSM is going to be phased out for...wait for it....NEXT GENERATION CDMA!

GSM is the dying technology. That's why it's so popular. It is much cheaper to deploy an old technology than a new one. Would you make the decision that shooting quality should be SD since most people don't have HD yet? Of course not, even though SD cameras are much cheaper. The relatively minimal investment in developing a CDMA version of a handset is trivial compared to the more than 200M potential customers worldwide that it opens up.

Saying that GSM has "billions" of customers is a bit misleading. 3G is no where near that level of penetration, the iPhone is going relatively unnoticed outside the US, and the majority of the GSM users are in developing nations and places where an iPhone or other high-end GSM device would NEVER cross a few thousand units.

So really, what's the problem, Mr. Ziegler? Why the axe to grind against a technology that is both technically and empirically better?

HTC can churn out CDMA and GSM versions of the exact same phone, why not Apple?

[Michael B @ Sep 29th 2008 6:07PM]

Why would it have to be any larger? The Treo I used to own had a swappable radio board for CDMA / GSM inside... both were the same size.

[Bob @ Sep 29th 2008 7:37PM]

Seems like a better plan for Apple would be to perfect the LTE 4G iPhone since Verizon should be ready for it in 2 years... by 2010. An LTE iPhone would work with almost all carriers since almost all will be using LTE in the future. Judging by the 3G problems Apple is having on many networks they better get started on LTE 4G now to get the bugs worked out in time.

[Big Al @ Sep 29th 2008 7:43PM]

@Brad:

I think you're confusing two different technologies even though they share the same acronym.

In 2G, there were many players but the top two were GSM and CDMA.
CDMA went on to evolve to CDMA2000 & EV-DO.
GSM/GPRS/EDGE evolved to WCDMA, HSDPA & HSUPA.

If you followed news last year, people talked about 3 emerging techs: UMB (from CDMA2000), LTE (from WCDMA), and WiMAX. But, over the past year, UMB news has dropped off almost entirely. What happened?

Qualcomm is what happened. They're the guys that helped significantly to make CDMA and had a huge influence in 3G tech. But, they got greedy and started charging vendors an arm and a leg to license their tech. They also started suing everyone for patent infringement (u can find a few "Qualcomm vs. Nokia" posts on Engadget.) In short, they made themselves a lot of enemies, and CDMA is taking the hit. CDMA is the dying tech, and will die long before GSM does. Even CDMA's biggest customer, Verizon, saw the writing on the wall and jumped shipped to LTE.

To answer the subscriber base issue, I'll link two sites that follow CDMA's (including EV-DO) and GSM's (including W-CDMA, HSPA) subscriber base.

For CDMA, CDMA2000, EV-DO:
http://www.cdg.org/
On their front page, they say that they have 450,000,000 CDMA2000 subscribers and an additional 100,000,000 EV-DO subscribers.

For GSM, EDGE, W-CDMA, HSDPA, HSUPA:
http://www.3gamericas.org/English/index.cfm
Their front page simply says 3,000,000,000 GSM (and its successors) subscribers and growing.

When you look at these numbers and Qualcomm's behavior over the past few years, it's not hard to see why Apple chose GSM for its iPhone and why it likely won't put in a CDMA chipset.

But hey, I hope I'm wrong. I've been waiting for Korea's KTF or SKT (WCDMA carriers) to pick up the iPhone. If Apple makes a CDMA version, then LGT (EV-DO carrier) can make a bid, and maybe I'll be able to get an iPhone in Korea.
/crosses fingers

[loosely_coupled @ Sep 29th 2008 7:46PM]

Exactly... People need to remember that even though many of the largest CDMA2000 carriers are throwing their hats in with LTE for the next-gen 4G network, there is still going to be a SIGNIFICANT TRANSITION PERIOD where CDMA will continue to be used while the rollout of LTE happens, and most likely carriers like Verizon will create dual-mode phones that run CDMA (EV-DO) *and* LTE during this period of time.

Also, "CDMA" aka CDMA2000/EV-DO is *NOT* just a North American standard. Here are some statistics from:
http://www.cdg.org/technology/cdma_technology/cdma_stats.asp

Total Worldwide CDMA subscribers: 463 Million
Total Worldwide CDMA networks: 541
Countries: 102

[wonkydonkydotnet @ Sep 29th 2008 10:26PM]

I agree. Can't they just stick a new chip in? Make some kind of wacky 4-Antenna Quad-Band WorldPhone, SuperAmalgam that can go everywhere?
-They've already got the phone done, what's a board-switch/chip-swap?

[Zelatio @ Sep 29th 2008 4:00PM]

Sub-par hardware with a sub-par OS....interesting....

[happy_penguin @ Sep 29th 2008 4:20PM]

I'll have some of whatever he's smoking...

[who? @ Sep 29th 2008 5:35PM]

They're not going to offer another kind of cellular network for the iPhone anyway, we're talking about the company that is reluctant to add another button to their keypads for crying out loud!

[Bubba @ Sep 29th 2008 4:01PM]

NOW = Verizon w/ No IPhone
PC: Hi, I'm Windows Mobile
MAC: and I'm and I'm Mini OSX.

FUTURE = Verizon w/ IPhone
PC: Hi I'm a Windows HackinIPhoneTosh
MAC: And I'm with my fugly half brother who has AIDS.

[Derbeste @ Sep 29th 2008 4:06PM]

You win the "WTF are you babbling on about?" award of the day.

[rock99rock @ Sep 29th 2008 4:14PM]

Only his frog could have made a post that garbled.

[Alex @ Sep 29th 2008 4:20PM]

AMAZING.

[le Chen @ Sep 29th 2008 4:02PM]

this must be the Meizu M8!!

[In2uition @ Sep 29th 2008 4:05PM]

Not going to happen....

[Aedile @ Sep 29th 2008 4:06PM]

[quote]Third, CDMA is a dying technology that will be finished off in the early part of the next decade as networks make the migration to LTE and other 4G platforms[/quote]

What this comment fails to realize is that many low-end carriers which are fast gaining popularity such as Cricket, Pocket Communications, MobiPCS, etc are all growing rapidly with ultra-low-price offerings built on CDMA technology. While many people here at engadget can't see the need for phone and text only offerings, I guarantee this comment is ignorant of the fact that the vast majority of the country that lives paycheck-to-paycheck doesn't give a cockroach's fart about the latest and greatest download tv shows to your phone while videoconferencing and streaming music. They'd rather have unlimited calling and text messages for less than $30 a month. CDMA isn't going anywhere just yet.

That being said, I don't think apple will bother because GSM is ultimately much more widespread.

-aedile-

[neodorian @ Sep 29th 2008 4:25PM]

The funny thing is that I use CDMA (Sprint EVDO) because it *is* the fastest and I can stream music and watch TV over it. It's also cheap as hell. WiMax just rolled out in my city today and I would imagine they are planning to transition to something more like that in a few years but for the time being $15/mo EVDO at DSL speeds is fine by me. I'm more interested in an Android or WM7 phone though. The only thing worse than having to install ActiveSync to manage my phone would be having to install iTunes to manage my phone *shudders*.

[happy_penguin @ Sep 29th 2008 4:26PM]

I agree. I have little doubt that the vast majority of phones currently in service are more than a few years old and the users of said phones are perfectly happy with them and not planning to upgrade. This is probably compounded by the fact that the economy is in the shitter and a lot of people don't have money for the latest phone and premium services.

[Rogue_Genius @ Sep 29th 2008 4:31PM]

Well said, Aedile.

And (+1) for "cricket's fart" ! That one actually made me laugh :D

[mykie @ Sep 29th 2008 4:50PM]

Unfortunately, with the ubiquity of GSM in the rest of the world, it's CDMA adoption still an uphill battle.

CDMA is technically superior, and is gaining more adoption in Asia and the Americas, which is good news...

But we all know that ubiquity isn't always an indicator of how good a technology is, look at how most people won't even consider MP3 players that aren't iPods.

[fh @ Sep 29th 2008 5:20PM]

CDMA isn't dead, but it does have a limited shelf life, and it -needs- to be treated that way. US carriers are in a sorry state of anti-competition, and sticking with existing technology just because "it's good enough for most users" will only hurt our ability to change that condition. The same thing is happening with Comcast's artificial bandwidth cap and anti-competitive markets (250gb/mo and no FTTH is "good enough for most users"): consumers end up with fewer options that are set at arbitrarily high prices. To put it differently, most sub-$30 mobile plans include unlimited nationwide and a set number of text messages. Drop it to sub-$20, add in unlimited international calling (thanks to VoIP) and unlimited texts and a lot of people would definitely be interested.

There are many factors, as you've pointed out, which help keep CDMA relevent today. And by itself, there's nothing wrong with a CDMA network or EVDO coverage for today's consumer. But CDMA and EVDO are -not- competitors to 4G/LTE, which the industry desperately needs to help break the anti-competitive spell that plagues US carriers. In other words, there's nothing wrong with more bandwidth if it costs the same, or makes existing plans cheaper -- but if the industry doesn't push for it, consumers lose out in the end.

[Miacol @ Sep 29th 2008 5:31PM]

Again you are looking at a US Market, when VW sold of Verizon Wireless Latin America, the buyer (Tele Mexico) decided to convert it all to GSM, and while the conversion is not yet complete in most of the 12 countries it's well under way.

[fh @ Sep 29th 2008 5:36PM]

Postscript:
The same critique applies to GSM as well; the difference is of course that there are more GSM subscribers, and thus GSM can reach more consumers as it evolves to 4G/LTE. But more consumers also makes it harder for GSM to evolve, which is why we need CDMA to step up to the plate.

Case in point? Japan's underdog au/KDDI (CDMA) is launching WiMAX publicly -next year-, which is forcing juggernaut NTT DoCoMo (UMTS) to push for its 4G technologies. Meanwhile consumers are steadily reaping the benefits.

[cromas @ Sep 29th 2008 9:45PM]

au/KDDI is not an underdog in Japan...not by a long shot. They are the Verizon to America's AT&T. NTT/DoCoMo has about 50,000,000 subscribers, au/KDDI about 30,000,000, and SoftBank about 18,000,000.

[dazepro @ Sep 29th 2008 4:06PM]

I was about to leap for joy when I read the title about Verizon getting the iPhone, than I continued reading seeing that they wanted to put crap WinMo on it, total fail!

[aaron @ Sep 29th 2008 4:25PM]

No...YOU totally fail.

[Taylor @ Sep 29th 2008 4:52PM]

You do realize the WinMo thing was a joke, right?

Or did you also think the phone cleared you acne as well?
-Taylor

[Bob @ Sep 29th 2008 4:07PM]

Want it to happen but it won't. Next rumor...

[Zack @ Sep 29th 2008 4:10PM]

I remember seeing an April Fool's joke on Fudzilla about a WM-based iPhone... I died a little on the inside back then. Imagine how this actual rumor makes me feel.

Please, Verizon, don't ruin a great platform like the iPhone with an awful OS like WinMob. That's like Apple trying to sell Windows-only Macs.

[Sukhminder @ Sep 29th 2008 4:17PM]

I don't think its going to clear acne either...

[Hey Ya @ Sep 29th 2008 4:23PM]

Wow. Way to read the article.

[kevinm @ Sep 29th 2008 4:11PM]

Has 9to5 every been right? This is just a pile of argument starting bulls***t.

[Yankees368 @ Sep 29th 2008 4:15PM]

iPhone on sprint, huh.

Meh, pass.

[Jason @ Sep 29th 2008 4:15PM]

I don't want that piece of crap.


I want the Touch HD.

Blow me Apple.
Double blow me, VZW.

[Chris @ Sep 29th 2008 4:19PM]

What does this have to do with Windows Mobile, or is that to prove how stupid this rumor is.

[Hey Ya @ Sep 29th 2008 4:26PM]

It's just an opportunity for a smart ass headline.

What's better than hating on Verizon and WinMo in one shot? He achieved some sort of gadget blogger headline Zen with this one.

[Patriks7 @ Sep 29th 2008 4:56PM]

Welcome to Engadget!
The place where Windows is bashed at every possible opportunity.
And do not miss out on our special offer about how we love Apple!

[phanbouy @ Sep 29th 2008 7:20PM]

Welcome to Engadget!
The place where some troll yells "iPhone!" or "Vista is teh suxx0r" and 25 people who've been waiting all day for it trot out their usual dog and pony show ala "And do not miss out on our special offer about how we love Apple!"