“One of our beloved Super Spies has snagged an internal memo advising Sprint employees that they’re ‘blacking out September 30th through October 15th,’ due to the possibility of a major phone release in October,” Mark Hearn reports for SprintFeed. “For those of you who don’t know what they mean by ‘blacking out,’ it means they’re not allowing time off requests during this specific time period.”
“Everything here suggests the iPhone making its highly anticipated debut on the Now Network,” Hearn reports. “Looking at the referenced time period, we’re pretty sure that this ‘big’ unnamed device will hit between the blackout dates.”
Full article, with screenshot, here.
[Attribution: 9to5Mac. Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Lynn Weiler” and “Judge Bork” for the heads up.]
It is now extremely unlikely that October would come and go without an iPhone launch on Sprint. The number of rather reliable and plausible rumours, coupled with this leaked internal memo, give fairly high confidence that this is happening.
T-Mobile is now getting left out in the cold, although I have no doubt, since the AT&T merger has less and less chance of ever happening, that they will soon launch their overtures with Apple on a deal for them as well. At this point, Apple has no strategic (nor tactical) reason for not having iPhone on all major domestic carriers (and here I’m ignoring the low-cost, pre-paid only Boost, Virgin Mobile, MetroPCS, Cricket, Trac-Fone, etc). Let us hope the outcome of AT&T – T-Mobile situation is know soon, so that we can get that iPhone on T-Mobile’s frequencies. I’d love a chance to have an iPhone on a $50 per month unlimited everything plan.
I’ve got a feeling T Mobile will have it soon too.
Unfortunately, part of the reason why Sprint and T-Mobile are currently offering such great plans, is because they don’t have the iPhone, while Verizon and AT&T do. I’m afraid we’ll be seeing those great plan options gradually fade from Sprint after they have the iPhone.
It seems to me that keeping the loower prices will help them compete even though they have the iPhone.
Otherwise, what is their competitive edge?
All right, Hesse. Once you go black-out, it’s too late to back out.
Obviously it is for the upcoming, highly anticipated Nexus Prime…
Good news and definitely a strong sign the iPhone 5 will be launch in a month or less time!!
Should be soon.