We'll find out how many people have actually put off buying an iPhone or reluctantly bought another smartphone, based on AT&T's perceived deficiencies.
It seems that if you wait long enough, any rumor will come to fruition, and so it is with the Verizon iPhone. Frankly, I've lost track of how long the rumor about a Verizon iPhone has been circulating. However, when the rumor shows up in the Wall Street Journal with a date attached, you can pretty much shift that "rumor" into the "fact" category. The bigger surprise is that the announcement is coming now, right after the all-important holiday buying season. Maybe Apple owed AT&T one more favor.
Last Thursday the Journal announced that tomorrow, Verizon will be introducing a version of the iPhone that operates on their network. This is big news for the iPhone-istas, whose only complaint about their favorite mobile gadget was they were stuck with the miserable AT&T network that it operated on.
There was some debate as to whether the difficulties stemmed from AT&T's network, or from the iPhone itself. Like virtually every other mobile operator, AT&T claims they have the fastest mobile broadband network. It is amazing that all of them can have the "fastest mobile broadband network"--it’s kind of like Lake Wobegon with a hyperbole problem. In spite of that, the iPhone-istas are absolutely sure that the blame lays at AT&T's door. With a Verizon iPhone, I guess we'll finally find out for sure if AT&T's the problem.
The bigger issue is what this will mean to the iPhone's share of the smartphone market. To my mind, there are only so many people who want the "iPhone experience". With or without Verizon, there are only so many people in that camp. While the vast majority of the iPhone users I know hate AT&T with a passion, they’re still iPhone users--a basic testimonial to "taking the good with the bad".
So the real question is: How many people have actually put off buying an iPhone or reluctantly switched to another smartphone option, based on AT&T's perceived deficiencies? Given the American penchant for instant gratification, my guess the increase in the available market for iPhones won't add up to an additional 10%.
The biggest impact will be on AT&T who will see iPhone customers leaving in droves as their contracts come up. We can expect to see AT&T's share of the iPhone market drop by at least half.
The one thing that could really accelerate that shift would be a 4G/LTE capable iPhone. Verizon launched their LTE network late last year, and the iPhone in conjunction with a 4G network would be a much bigger story. The single biggest deliverable would be better cellular mobile video. The iPhone's Face Time application only works on Wi-Fi, though Skype recently announced their iPhone app would support video over 3G. Apple has traditionally been a step behind in mobile technology, so my guess is: no 4G in the initial release.
Verizon has said that they will stick with unlimited data plans for the iPhone, which further reinforces that belief. All of Verizon's current 4G data plans are capped at 5G or 10 Gbytes per month, so an unlimited 4G plan exclusively for iPhone would signal a major reversal.
The mobile market is great to watch, but the casual watchers are prone to overstatement--with two operators offering the iPhone, the number of device sales are not going to double. When the dust settles iPhone's market share may inch up a couple of percentage points, but it's user preference that shapes the choice between iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and even Phone 7 (I've actually run into a few folks who are happy with those of late). So it's good new for the iPhone users and decidedly bad news for AT&T.
