Of late there have been many rumours which point in the direction of Apple launching a new CDMA iPhone early next year, most presuming it will be the much talked about and rumoured Verizon iPhone; however apparently a new report adds yet another twist to the rumours.
According to an article over on Intomobile by Kelly Hodgkins, this latest report by way of Techcrunch says that Apple’s next-gen iPhone and the Verizon iPhone will not support Verizon’s LTE 4G network but rather the iPhone 5 will be dual-mode GSM/CDMA.
Apparently the author of the report suggests that Apple isn’t interested in making an LTE capable iPhone due to the technology being young and emerging, and thus will forego LTE 4G in favour of the more reliable GSM, EV-DO and HSDPA tech.
The author also suggests that Apple will not tarnish their reputation by being the guinea-pig for LTE. If you can remember back when Apple launched the original iPhone they opted to go with EDGE tech rather than 3G until the 3G network was mature enough.
So if true, we aren’t likely to see an LTE capable iPhone from Apple until the iPhone 6 in mid 2012, which by then both Verizon and AT&T should have their 4G networks up and running more smoothly.
Let’s be honest here, even if the Verizon iPhone doesn’t support LTE 4G people aren’t going to mind as all they really want is an iPhone on a different carrier than AT&T. As for being a guinea-pig, well take a look at the iPhone 4 external antenna, and say Apple isn’t a guinea-pig, but then again all this is purely speculation at this point.