“Apple and Cingular have signed an agreement that will make the US’ largest cell phone provider the exclusive carrier of Apple’s forthcoming phone, sources report. Apple’s iPhone remains on track for an early 2007 release,” Ryan Katz reports for Think Secret.
“As previously reported, Apple’s phone will feature a candy-bar design with a 2.2-inch display and 3 megapixel camera. Robust iTunes and iSync support will also be delivered with the phone,” Katz reports. “Apple’s exclusive contract with Cingular is said to be good for the first six months, sources report, meaning other providers will be able to sell the phone in the second-half of 2007.”
“O2 had the exclusive on the ROKR in Europe, however, suggesting that provider may again be tapped to launch Apple’s phone,” Katz reports. “Meanwhile, insiders say Apple is internally estimating that shipments of the iPhone will top a staggering 25 million in 2007 alone.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “raddoc” and “Tom M.” for the heads up.]
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I’m hoping beyond hope that this rumor will finally come to pass. The rumor that will never die…. It’s funny how persistent this rumor is, given that Apple has never mentioned it.
If there’s nothing at MacWorld in January, I think all is lost.
However, the rumor will probably live on.
And I was about to switch my contract, up in January, from O2. I’ll sit it out for a bit longer perhaps
Never had a cell phone. May revise that policy.
darn… was kind of hoping that ALPe would launch its own network, that way there would be an even greater integration with .Mac and other Apple-specific features.
But on the bright side, that means that I can use this iPhone in HK on any network! Hurrah! Just as long as it has full synchronisation with OSX and works just like it, then I’m happy whatever the network!
BRING IT ON!!!
Using Cingular…good call.
Sorry for the typo! Should of course be Apple.
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Had to change the batteries on the wireless keyboard
Not good enough. I need this phone to have a mini version of Address Book AND iCal which will sync with my Mac. Then I can ditch my Treo (which really has a mediocre GUI). Of course, the best would be if it could run some version of OS X and Opera for surfing and Mail for email as well as other apps (like games). And a touch screen with virtual keypad…
Well, I can dream, can’t I?
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Why O2 in Europe and not T-Mobile or Vodaphone? The latter 2 have much more pull in Europe than O2…
why only US?? With all respect, US mobile market isn’t as modern as Europe, let alone Japan and South Korea.
Though I know it’s kinda hard to enter Japan and South Korea (because of the technology differences n competition) plus iPhone spec would be kinda old for both countries (3 MP is nothing there), at least Apple should still sell it in other asian countries because I think the market is promising.
The carriers will invest in huge advertising campaigns for the iPhone. Apple will get free publicity and sell like crazy. It’s a win-win situation. Watch AAPL getting a hike today!
Agree with you gzero, I don’t even think O2 is available here in Sweden! I have never heard of ANYONE here using them. Vodafone and Telia are the largest ones here and they have excellent reception, costs a bit more but it’s worth it. I plan to buy just the phone and continue to use my Telia.
Cingular has the worst customer service on the planet, bait and switch tactics and a ton of disgruntled former AT&T employees just for bad measure and they’re half owned by the new AT&T which is the old SBC (Southwestern Bell) another crooked phone company, what a bummer. I guess I’ll have to wait a bit longer for my Apple phone because I’m never ever signing up for service from Cingular.
HD
That sounds like all of the phone companies…or none, depending on your experience.
I use Cingular and don’t have any problems. Never had to deal with customer service.
maccam,
never had one either.
But I think Apple will change my mind for me.
AT&T are just great if you know how to talk politely to them. You need to call them every six months or so to check if they have a better plan. It has always resulted in satisfaction and a lower rate for me. I have all my communication needs with them. Takin’ care of bizness.
As someone who works in the cell industry, this is a very interesting rumor as wouldn’t it mean Apple will not be an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) a fancy name for a reseller? I would think they would use the Apple stores to sell through, and control the customer experience from a service point of view.
As far as GSM, with Apple being an international company with a strong European following, they couldn’t do anything else, however for data use and multimedia, CDMA would have been better with EVDO Rev A around the corner (Mobile iChat?) They could always bring out another version with that chipset.
Please Apple, I need a new phone!. I hate my RAZR.
As long as I can walk into an Apple Store and buy an unlocked iPhone I don’t care which carrier subsidizes the launch.
Apple needs to make this deal with Cingular ONLY if customers can purchase an iPhone at the Applestore (no need to be hassled by a slimy cell phone agent) AND customers DO NOT need a NEW plan to activate the phone AND the price of the iPhone is the same for NEW and EXISTING Cingular customers. All one would need to do is call Cingular to activate a special LOW COST iPhone Internet plan for net access.
Otherwise this is going to be another flopperamma like the Moto iTunes phones.
The best option for Apple’s success is to sell the phones UNLOCKED for all GSM carriers (T-Mobile, Cingular, former AT&T, Rogers) at the Applestore! WiFI would be a good call as well.
Cingular absolutely sucks. If Apple goes with them exclusively, they won’t get my money for an iPhone.
Too bad we’ll never see this on Verizon. Apple would have to put the standard Verizon UI on it and then strip out iTunes to put Vcast Music on it. Then it wouldn’t work with a Mac anymore just windows. At least we have the best network. Too bad we criple the crap out of our phones.
WHERE THE HELL IS CANADA’S PHONE!!!!!!
I want one too.
Need a decent Smartphone that’ll play nice with your Mac now? Try the Nokia 6682. I’m all for the iPhone but waiting for this rumor to finally pan out is getting old. My Nokia is as close to an Apple experience as I’ve had in a Smartphone.
i wonder if it’ll have a dock connector?
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i am quite interested in this, shame it’s o2 tho
It’s funny how persistent this rumor is, given that Apple has never mentioned it.
But it has strongly hinted!
Cingular has never been a problem for me. Apple, I only use clamshell phones, so this won’t do it.
Interesting… I watched the Donny Deutsch interview of Bill Gates. He asked if Billy had an iPod. His response was that a cell phone was a better approach for a MP3 player. But then Microslop announces the Zune. Who is running the show over there.
… to those who are complaining that Apple isn’t implementing this in their countries yet: Apple IS an American company. It makes sense for them to start off in an environment that they both know and understand before expanding. This is a pretty typical move for Apple (or any company really) that ensures they won’t run into any major implementation issues right off the bat. Let them get it established and I’m sure we’ll see it expand rapidly.
I was hoping that it would be unlocked as well as wifi enabled for both web browsing AND phone calls. Having a web browser that allows for the entering a uid / pw to get onto a wifi node (many hotels require this now) and then make free calls using the internet would be outstanding.
I like the coverage I get with Verizon and had bad luck (from a coverage standpoint) with Sprint, Cingular and T-mobile. I can’t stand the phone crippling that Verizon does and will not be surprised if Verizon loses out entirely on this phone.
It would be even better if this phone sported the rumored touch-less interface enabling great phone, music and camera UI’s.
A 3 mega-pixel phone … if the photo’s rival my canon digital elf it would be a great addition to the iPhone. If the music part of the phone and the camera are well implemented and not crippled I’ll strongly consider switching. Otherwise, I’ll ignore the iPhone and stick to dedicated-function devices.
7over
In my opinion, the best thing for Apple to do is to sell the iPhone (if there actually IS an iPhone in the works) without a contract for a low price, around US $399, which is very cheap for a non subsidized cell phone.
if it is not unlockable I am not interested. I agree with the ones here that said Cingular has a terrible customer service
It would be a shame if they went with Cingular… they seem to have an inability to treat their customers as human beings.
“Otherwise this is going to be another flopperamma like the Moto iTunes phones”
It can’t be that much of a flop. I see those RAZRs everywhere.
And the stock continues to rise. Time once again to start kicking myself for not buying at $7 (split-adjusted) a few short years ago.
FSCK CINGULAR
evil, slimy bastards.
I think I see the future.
It’s just around the corner…
And the name on it says……Apple.
O2 are OK, so I’ll be in there pronto.
Nice if it synchs with iLife and Address Book etc.
Crikey I hate exclusive carrier contracts for new phones. Pain in the as*!
It would be great if they changed that and released it on all carriers at once… Apple can drive that kind of change.
The US cellular industry is so screwed up anyway… different standards. It’s amazing that number portability actually works!!!
Charlie
http://www.TierraGPS.com
O2 is the most sucking provider in the whole of Europe, let’s hope it’s not true..
Vodafone is fine by me
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Tried other providers for a few years, but Vodafone stays the best imho.
The exclusivity of the contract with Cingular is for 6 months in the American market. Expect other limited time exclusive contracts in other regions too.
I would be shocked if AAPL does not hit at least 200 by the end of 2007 and that is on the low end of my expectations. If you look at the products and business plans Apple has now and what is in the works, the roof is going to blow off all of the Wall Street investment firms. Hang on. This is going to be one fun ride.
Cingular is so horrible in my area. I really don’t see any nice rates as far as plans, compared to others. Why don’t they offer this to other companies damn them!!! I want to be able to use an iphone with my Alltel plan. Alltel in my area has really nice coverage. Never had a problem with them but I know everyone has had a different experience with each of the companies. I just wish they would consider it an option to make it available to all the companies. Thats even if this iphone actually happens I am not holding my breath thats for sure.
great. I can’t get one. it has a camera. I, and millions of others, work at companies which do not allow cameras on their premesis.
Why don’t Diet Coke’s come with lip balm while we’re at it? What is the obsession with cameras on phones?
Its a phone – and i want to get and make phone calls.. if i wanted to take a blurry picture of something with bad lighting, i’d draw meself a picture.
Dear Cell phone makers – if you MUST make phones with cameras, could you at least make a version without them? Thanks.
It appears with this article that Apple has scrapped plans to become a service provider along with the new phone… While it reduces risk, it also reduces opportunity.
An interesting move by Apple would be to provide Apple Only services, following the same AIM/iChat model. Service providers carrying the iPhone will also have some Apple-only features, such as iChat A/V (eventually) and a significantly better web browsing experience.
Bore me later. An iPhone? If it doesn’t top the RAZR, don’t bother me. And candy bar phones suck, suck, suck. Flip phone or nothing, man.
Great. Cingular doesn’t have a tower within 50 miles of here.
Oh well, my old cingular phone up and fell apart on me. Got the new Samsung D807 instead of waiting until Apple does or does not come out with a phone in January. You can bet sour grapes I’ll be hoping this rumors false! 😀
MacMan, my Sony Ericsson T637 syncs with AddressBook and iCal just fine.
sh*t sh*t sh*t i haaattte cingular.
I hope this isnt true.
Gzero, I don’t know about the rest of europe but in Ireland all the big O2 stores are also apple centres,selling almost the full range of apple products. This promotion of all things apple could be the reason for O2 being allowed to carry the phone first, if there ever is an iPhone that is.
I’m with you maccam. I’ve never had a cell phone, and I’m not much into the candy bar design, but the idea of an Apple designed phone might be just the thing that puts me over the top on finally buying one.
Of course the biggest thing about an iPhone is, hopefully, that it would be much more compatible with the Mac OS X. It’s disgusting how badly the Macs work with modern mobile phones.
I was in the Cingular store, just last Sunday, helping my Mother-in-law buy a Go-Phone and while we were there, a couple of people were buying ROKR RAZR phones. People are still buying them. I can only imagine how well an iPhone would sell.
That is, if this RUMOR is actually true.
Oh, HD; by the way. The Cingular rep that sold us her phone, set up her phone and had to sit and wait on hold for 15 minutes on the phone, so they have to deal with the same poor customer service that we have to deal with.
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the Apple phone will be available in white, black, and brown (to capture the zunists) and will be called the
“iphune”.
“It can’t be that much of a flop. I see those RAZRs everywhere.”
You see them everywhere because they are cheap phones! That does not mean they are all iTunes enabled or that they are great phones at all. How many people own a Motorola phone with iTunes on it? There you go. The Moto phones have one major drawback. The GUI is terrible! Like running Windows 3.1 on on a PDA. Sony has a much better GUI on the Walkman phones but we all know those ain’t workin with iTunes anytime soon. Still need to do drag and drop there and they do not play protected AAC.
For the iPhone to really take off it needs to come without the BS that wireless providers make customers go through. Present a cool phone and then ream you up the kazoo with a service contract.
For instance a link to buy an iPhone on Apple’s site that takes you to a Cingular sign up plan is not going to sell millions of these things. Maybe sell about 100.
It had better do more than just iTunes and iSync. Such as a good .mac integration, something that’s severely lacking on cell phones these days, decent web integration. It also needs to be fast, a lot of the current phones out there have horrid and slow UIs. And it needs to have decent hardware for text input for messaging.
I was thinking about getting Blackberry 8100 when Cingular finally releases, who knows when, been waiting forever. But maybe I should wait for the iPhone.
Why not make it available to all the major European networks and get more sales?
If not, I hope at least they make it easy to unlock so you can use it on a different network.
Funny thing is…
I’m not going to switch carriers for a new Apple phone. I’d plunk down $300 for an “iPhone” if Verizon carried it.
They must be getting a wad of cash to think people are going to cancel their contracts to move over to Cingular…
I think it’s a bit nuts.