iPhone On Verizon Thoughts
After literally years of speculation, Verizon has finally landed the iPhone.
The Good
- Essentially the same iPhone 4 as currently available on AT&T. Some were disappointed that model lacked new features, but from a marketing perspective it makes more sense to roll out the iPhone 5 in summer — and a suggestion that Android growth is more due to carrier availability than the technology.
- AT&T didn’t preinstall Verzion-specific applications, keeping the user experience consistent across carriers.
- A new carrier means more competition for AT&T, and I’m already wondering if AT&T will adjust their data plan pricing or announce support for the mobile hot spot feature.
The Bad
- Plan pricing is still to be announced, and possibly costlier than AT&T. Am particularly curious about the unlimited data plan, and if the mobile hot spot costs more.
- A few nagging questions: will Face Time work across carriers? Will iPhone 5 appear on AT&T and Verizon simultaneously?
- No simultaneous voice and data — I suppose if you get a phone call all your mobile hotspot clients will be kicked off — a throwback to dial-up.
Conclusion
We’ll see if expanding to Verizon is enough to hold off Android for a few months until the debut of iPhone 5. My gut feeling is yes: the average joe consumer, not concerned with upgrade cycles or CDMA vs. LTE — will buy millions.
Face Time should definitely work across carriers, as it uses data, not the phone system. That’s why you can Face Time on an iPod Touch or Mac, even though neither even has a phone module.
I’d bet my car that iPhone 5 will come out on all carriers simultaneously, as well. From this point on, Verizon and AT&T are just like any other carriers around the world. The iPhone is often released on multiple carriers at once, and Apple has nothing to gain by playing favorites to any one carrier in one market. That’s why I assume that AT&T has been given the option of the WiFi hotspot feature, and it will be up to them, not Apple, whether or not they want to offer that to customers.
The mobile hotspot on any Android or Palm phone costs more, so I assume it will cost more on the iPhone as well. The question is how much more. If it’s a reasonable price, and you get extra data with the plan (like you do with other Verizon phones) it could be a better option for many people than a 3G iPad. I hope AT&T decides to bring this to the GSM iPhone before the next iPad comes out.
Definitely had the same thought regarding mobile hot spot working well with a WiFi only iPad, and effectively turning it into a 3G iPad for possibly less cost. And I could see jumping on the hot spot with the AT&T iPhone whenever the connection gets spotty.
And we can finally see the burden shifting to the carriers and away from Apple — Apple announces a new feature like this mobile hot spot, Verizon says “okay,” now the onus is on AT&T to support it too. Whereas in the past, there always seemed to be questions regarding whether AT&T or Apple was holding things back.