“Add Sprint-Nextel to the growing list of U.S. carriers that will offer the iPhone,” Ed Sutherland reports for Cult of Mac.
“The carrier is likely to gain the Apple handset by Christmas and it could be a big-seller, one analyst tells investors Wednesday,” Sutherland reports. “The key is Sprint will be the last remaining U.S. carrier with an unlimited data plan after Verizon is expected to go to metered pricing Thursday.”
Advertisement: Students, parents and Faculty save up to $200 on a new Mac.
Sutherland reports, “Being able to offer an iPhone with an unlimited data plan provides “an attractive proposition for more price-conscious users (a demographic that we think is increasingly important to Apple following the rise of Android), writes Citadel Securities analyst Shing Yin. Additionally, an Apple handset from Sprint could outsell the Verizon iPhone.”
Read more in the full article here.
ipad pro
Well, good… if Sprint does Unlimited and wins customers away from VZ/ATT then… ATT/VZ has no choice but to bring those plans back.
If iPhone 4 and 5 will be with 4G with sprint in future.
If AT&T gets T-JMobile, it will be all of them
I’d but one now if it were on Sprint. I despise Verizon.
Cellular South has unmetered data and is working to get the iPhone. Regional with good nationwide coverage.
BTW- Apple offers unlocked 3GS models for $250. You can be untied to AT&T for $250 with no contract & no jailbreak.
It needs to be on Sprint AND T-Mobile by the end of this year.
And then Apple has to do something to prevent from having a Motorola RAZR on their hands. There will have to be an expansion of the lineup beyond a single handset. They need something that’s easy to manufacture in high numbers while maintaining the prestige of the main device.
What are you talking about? Apple offers a $49 iPhone. There’s no way to “dumb down” an iPhone – a smaller screen, fewer apps (like an iPod nano), etc. kill the “iPhoneness” of an iPhone. You may as well have a RAZR at that point.
“Maintaining the prestige of the device” is done by NOT creating a small, feature-restricted version of the iPhone. You don’t see BMW or Mercedes building pick up trucks and cheap compact cars just because it’s a segment they’re not in, do you? Somehow the “prestige” of their brands has survived just fine without competing with the Chevy Aveo and Honda Civic.
Are you kidding me with the luxury car analogy? The only reason BMW cleans up is off the sales of the small, “feature restricted” and affordable BMW 3 Series line. What you’re proposing is akin to them sticking with the full size 7 Series and never producing a vehicle that could be considered less, in which case they’d be dead in the water. Same with Mercedes, Lexus, Jaguar, Cadillac and every other full luxury marque with a diverse line of cars.
Samsung looks more like them than Apple does at this point, the Samsung that’s about to become the top smartphone hardware vendor because they’re not idiotically pushing one damn phone but rather a diverse line that’s anchored by their iPhone knockoff, the same way Mercedes is anchored by the S Class.
The car analogy really doesn’t fit. Apple really doesn’t need another iPhone with a different form factor other than the annual updates.
It would be great if iPhones were offered contract free at a less expensive price. Since Apple has supply advantages as well as a single phone to make, the efficiency and potential cost savings, in producing one iPhone model may make a contract free lower priced iPhone a reasonable liklihood.
Apple doesn’t need multiple model iPhones of the same year.
“small, “feature restricted” and affordable BMW 3 Series line”
How about bloated and vastly overpriced BMW 3 Series. Today’s 3 Series is bigger and way thirstier than the 5 Series from 30 years ago.
BMW makes a nice $25k car and sells it for $50k.
There does not HAVE to be an expansion of the line up beyond the current iPhone. Apple has done with the iPhone what motorola was not able to to with the RAZR; release 4 versions of the same phone with each version exceeding the previous ones in both features and popularity. Motorola tried to capitalize on the popularity of the RAZR however no other four lettered model ever reached the popularity of the RAZR. PEBL? KRZR? RCKR? Not to mention the industry had a little revolution around 2007 that kinda sounded the death knell for these non smart phones.
Apple has a cheap iPhone. It’s called the 3GS. $49 is a steal for that phone. That’s the only variety Apple needs. Anything else will fragment Apple’s market. This isn’t the iPod, you don’t need different form factors to do different things. Apple is on the right path, it’s hard to argue with a company that has enjoyed the level of success it has.
I like Apple’s strategy, I like it a lot.
@r2
Apple probably knows what to do.
Yes, I believe they do, which is why I expect them to soon have a full line of phones available on every carrier. They have almost reached the end of where one phone can take you. After the iPhone is available on every US carrier, it’s time to move beyond that.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for a full line of iPhones, it isn’t going to happen.
Funny. The iPhone’s “growing list” of carriers is all of 2!
Quite the five year growth rate.
Slow and steady wins the race.
There is no competition and the rest will be history…
This has to be one of the DUMBEST rumors I’ve heard in a long time.
Sprint is the only significant carrier in the world that is going with WiMAX as it’s waveform implementation for its 4G step.
Why would Apple *EVER* create a “Sprint only” phone after being able to sell a CDMA/GSM/LTE phone? (and yes, I know that the latest variants of GSM is are CDMA variants) Last I checked the chip to do CDMA/GSM/LTE was reasonable and not too awfully power hungry. This allows Apple to support all the major players around the world — except Sprint — with one design. The only chip design I’ve seen that has CDMA/GSM/LTE/WiMAX was way too big and too power hungry. I cannot imagine Apple ever putting such a monster into a phone. True, designs evolve, but that one would have to have evolved one hell of a lot!
Besides I’ve never liked WiMAX for truly mobile applications because of the Doppler Spread issue. It starts to fall appart at about 35 mph relative speed between the towers and the mobile device. It completely falls apart long before freeway speeds. (But clearly the Doppler Spread issue isn’t a problem when far from a city and out on the open road.)
According to the rumors, the iPhone 4S will be GSM/CDMA only, not LTE, and thus compatible with all US networks.
Sorry, but the source article is idiotic. Contrast the source title with what he author actually says and you’ll notice there’s a problem.
Title: “Report: Sprint iPhone Will Definitely Happen By Christmas”
Article: “The carrier is likely to gain the Apple handset by Christmas and it could be a big-seller, one analyst tells investors Wednesday.
IOW: No proof is provided. No verification of proof is provided. And the source ‘analyst’ hedges his statement with the word ‘likely’.
Kids, this is not journalist. This is garbage hit-whoring. For all we know this is a temporary Sprint stock manipulation trick. Total FAIL!
I’m puzzled. I’ve lived in a half dozen countries over time. In none of them is a phone tied to a carrier. From New Zealand, where you walk into an electronics shop and buy a phone then later buy a SIM card from any of the four carriers, in both cases just like buying a carton of milk, to Russia where you buy a phone in similar fashion but must line up at a carrier, produce your passport, fill in forms and all that post-soviet nonsense. But you still get a SIM card (pre-pay for example) in both places separate from the phone. Why is America different?