“An iPhone, an iPhone, my carrier’s reputation for an iPhone.” Grab a cup of coffee and get yourself comfortable, fans of behind-the-scenes industry drama. Wired has published an exhaustive and fascinating expose on the “loveless celebrity marriage” that is Apple and AT&T — all from sources familiar with the matters but who cannot (or will not) be named, of course. In other words, don’t take this as gospel, but frankly, none of this sounds too crazy or outside the realm of what we’ve already surmised ourselves. In brief, the two companies have been contentious towards one another since just after the iPhone was unveiled. For AT&T’s part, the carrier was reportedly taken aback when its requests (delivered by Senior VP Kris Rinne) to restrict YouTube’s bandwidth usage (or make it WiFi-only) while the network infrastructure was built up fell on deaf ears in Cupertino. Word has it Apple also refused to allow its devices to be used in campaigns to combat Verizon’s Map for That ads: “It was [effective] because of AT&T’s network. We would have been letting them use the iPhone to put lipstick on a pig,” remarked one anonymous Apple exec.
What’s most interesting to us here is the ongoing reported discussion to drop AT&T in favor for Verizon. That chapter apparently begins just months after the original’s launch, with an investigative team (including Scott Forstall) ultimately concluding that Qualcomm‘s CDMA (or CDMA / GSM hybrid) chips would require a complete redesign of the device, not to mention a nasty lawsuit with AT&T over its exclusive contract (perhaps a minor issue, knowing Apple). Back then, Verizon wasn’t seen as a guaranteed improvement, and according to one executive privy to such meetings, the carrier switch has been discussed at least a half dozen times, with the general consensus always being that it would “cause as many problems as it solved.” We can’t imagine this is gonna help stem the perpetual VZW iPhone rumor mill.
Hit up the source link for the full tale, which does hit on a fundamental issue of the mobile industry going forward: as smartphone makers continue to push their devices’ capabilities, bandwidth concerns will continue to grow and carriers are likely to take the majority of the blame. If you ask us, David Fincher has just found his ideal follow-up to The Social Network — we’d especially love to see someone film the part where AT&T asks Steve Jobs to ditch the turtleneck and wear a suit when meeting with its board of directors.
Apple discussed Verizon switch ‘at least half a dozen times,’ and other stories about its AT&T relationship originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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All’s not well in Creepy Red Eye land, if reports out of several cell phone forums can be believed — a number of early Droid X adopters are documenting serious graphical or possibly electrical problems with the handset’s giant screen. While we don’t know how widespread the issue might be quite yet, symptoms include rapid flickering and vertical banding over all or part of the 4.3-inch LCD. Several forumites claim to have already had their phones replaced, in some cases being told the defect was a common problem in their respective launch day batches. We’ve contacted Verizon for confirmation and hope to have a response soon; in the meanwhile, see video examples of both issues after the break, and let us know if you’ve seen similar glitches in comments below.
