Well, anyway. I wanted to add that the US cell market is so messed up that even though Sprint and Verizon are on the same CDMA bands, they do not allow you to bring the competitor’s phone to their network. In fact, most carriers don’t allow it. The only carriers I know of that support phones from other networks are T-Mobile and a regional carrier called Cricket.

Oh, and with CDMA, it isn’t simply trading SIM cards to get on another provider. You have to have the phone’s ESN code released from the old provider and activated with the new provider. Then you have to program the phone with the correct MIN, MDN, and APNs (along with 3G passwords, etc.).

That’s too bad, my ATT iphone already has too weak of a vibration. Don’t go soft on us now, apple.

We have four major mobile phone operators in the UK (Orange, O2, Vodafone, T-mobile) and you can use any phone on any network. The networks tend to sell them locked to their network but getting the network lock removed, legitimately, is trivial in time, effort and cost. Walk down any high street and you’re virtually guaranteed to find at least one shop with a sign in the window advertising phone unlocking.

Actually I just remembered it’s now three major operators. Orange and T-mobile merged last year but have kept the separate branding, for now. Phones which are on Orange actually now use T-Mobile’s network if the signal is stronger and vice-versa.

(Apparently a lot of the difference is that WCDMA is better for high population densities (as much of Europe has) and is more backwards-compatible with GSM.)

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I guess the test would be to wait until they release the “iPhone 4S” and see if it uses design aspects of the Verizon phone.

You mean like all the iPhones sold in Europe since the iPhone 3G???

In both countries the WCDMA networks have been operating for over 7 years now, I wouldn’t call that “pretty exclusively CDMA”.

there’s no conspiracy behind it.

Qualcomm invented CDMA, Code Division Multiple Access, as an answer to AMPS, the original analog system that Motorola made in the early 1980s.

GSM is a European standard, and AT&T is an oddball for using it in the USA. Similar to a bit of highway in southern Arizona that’s calibrated in kilometers. Communists. Heresy. Etc.

But there is a country that doesn’t care what the rest of the world is doing…

I believe this IS basically the AT&T phone we’ll see in July. It will just be called the 4Gs or something akin to that. Probably running on iOS 4.3 to give it some new features.

CDMA should just go away. But it is so pervasive over the U.S. the investment costs to get rid of it make little to no sense.

GSM forever! THAT IS WHAT SHE SAID!

Apple has done this before with both displays and computers without marketing any changes they have changes power supply models and even motherboards to newer versions.

Anyways to throw into the mix of mobile telephone standards, differences of frequencies, etc,. here is wikipedia’s list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_standards

Go through them ALL. Then come back and try to build the same iPhone Verizon version with the same layout. Good luck with that.

RE: #29) Canada’s GSM/CDMA. At the moment, all three corporatocracy are jumping into the HSDPA+ and trying out LTE. We’re pretty much 3G+ now. In my eyes, we’re dumping the CDMA concept, if anyone wanted to use a smartphone up here, it’s all on the GSM bands. Think 850, 1900, AWS, etc,. Or if you’re still confused, AT&T and T-Mobile smartphones work up here, Verizon smartphones work, but kinda on the very slow side.