WSJ: ‘Apple Making Verizon-Ready iPhone by Year End’

Yukari Iwatani Kane and Ting-I Tsai, reporting for the WSJ:

Apple Inc. plans to begin mass producing a new iPhone by the end of 2010 that would allow Verizon Wireless to sell the smartphone early next year, said people briefed by Apple.

The new iPhone would be similar in design to the iPhone 4 currently sold by AT&T Inc. but would be based on an alternative wireless technology called CDMA used by Verizon, these people said. The phone, for which Qualcomm Inc. is providing a key chip, is expected to be released in the first quarter of next year, according to the same people.

Note that there’s a difference between Apple making a CDMA iPhone and Verizon carrying it. The WSJ is only reporting what I did two months ago: that a CDMA iPhone 4 is heading toward production. They’re not saying Verizon has agreed to carry it.

★ Wednesday, 6 October 2010