“The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sprint has entered into an agreement with Apple to purchase over $20 billion worth of iPhones over the next four years — that’s around 30 million iPhones,” Jonathan S. Geller reports for BGR. “It’s said that Sprint won’t even break even on the transaction until 2014, which is surely a huge risk on Sprint’s part, but why?”
“I have been going back and forth for weeks with one of my incredibly solid industry contacts on a piece of information that I couldn’t really process at first — information that is so unbelievable, even from a source this solid, that I couldn’t report it,” Geller reports. “With this new WSJ report on an Apple/Sprint deal, however, it doesn’t look so crazy.”
Geller reports, “I have been told that Sprint will be getting the iPhone 5 — yes the real iPhone 5, not the iPhone 4S — as an exclusive. And it will be a 4G WiMAX device. AT&T and Verizon would launch the iPhone 4S and get the iPhone 5 some time in the first quarter of next year as an LTE device. Globally, the iPhone 5 might be available as a 4G HSPA+ device.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The rumor mill is spinning so fast now that it’s about to affect the earth’s rotation. We’ll find out for sure starting at 10am PT/1pm ET tomorrow!
Related article:
Sprint to ‘bet the company’ on Apple iPhone; to buy $20 billion worth of iPhones over next four years – October 3, 2011
If this did happen I would not upgrade my iPhone 4. In fact I may just abandon the iPhone altogether and go back to Android!
So u can’t be patient enough to wait for a few months until the phone is released on your carrier? Yea go get an Android phone like I did and live to regret the purchase every day. While my friends enjoy their iPhones on VZW, I am stuck with with POS HTC Inc. for another year.
and watch out for that HTC security problem now. (scroll down on MDN)
Oh wait, you didn’t want to hear any more reasons to regret the purchase right?
Well, yea… now that you mention it. I’d probably stick with the iPhone. I’d just be pretty pissed at Apple for doing this. Just like everyone else who is on AT&T or VZN.
Greil Memorial Psychiatric
2140 Upper Wetumpka Road,
Montgomery, AL 36107-1342
I recommend it after your “abandonment”.
There won’t be a Sprint iPhone 5 exclusive, unless their is a major rift with ATT Verizon.
WOW! JUST WOW!
Apple’s not known for their loyalty to their customers.
Wasn’t AT&T #3 when they got the original iPhone? They were willing to give Apple what they wanted.
No way Sprint got an exclusive, UNLESS Sprint is paying Apple to keep the iPhone 5 OFF of T-Mobile.
The U.S. wireless industry has really become three-tiered: AT&T and Verizon; Sprint and T-Mobile; everyone else.
Sprint needs to keep itself in that distant third position and not let T-Mobile either get assimilated by AT&T or overtake it. Being a third outlet for the iPhone 5 would do just that, but only if T-Mobile doesn’t get it as well.
BTW, I’m not switching to Sprint if it has the iPhone 5 exclusively for a few months. I’ll wait it out until AT&T gets it.
If this deal is true Apple just purchase half of Sprint. Now Apple can have better control over it iCloud without the data limits that ATT and Verizon put on it service.
Could this explain why AT&T says I am not eligible for an upgrade until 2012?
I went to an AT&T store today, Since I bought the iPhone 4 on launch day..
Asked about when I could upgrade since the iPhone 5 discussion is tomorrow. Nov 24th is our early upgrade date for those that bought on day one.
but… AT&T IS allowing earlier upgrades up to an extra 30 days..
So if nothing else I can upgrade to the iPhone 5 on Oct 24th, but I HAVE to do it in store.. can’t online or order from Apple.
That is unless AT&T repeats what they did when the iPhone 4 launched, and allowed iPhone 3/3G users upgrade early. The Manager told me to check back after the Apple event tomorrow, AT&T may have policy changes. the iPhone 4 early upgrade last year, AT&T announced the change either the day of or the day after the iPhone 4 unveiling.
Don’t go online to check, go in store.
This is just dumb on so many levels:
First, Sprint does not have nor can it raise that kind of cash.
Second, an exclusive to a carrier that has less than 1/4 of the user base at this time is worse than stupid.
Third, building a WiMax phone when Sprint has already stated they are moving to LTE over the next two to three years (and have already started deploying LTE) is just too dumb for words. Why design something you KNOW will be obsolete and useless in two years?
How is Amazon’s new Kindle Fire the front line in a battle for the future?
They may be losing $50/ Fire sold. But this is not an e-reader, this is a general purpose tablet computer, so not everyone will buy a lot of books.
The stakes are high in this desperate strategy!
— http://jmmxtech.wordpress.com/kindle-fire/ —
Select the “Analysis” link.
Not likely an exclusive deal. Apple would be far better off giving Sprint the go ahead to sell phones on there network and also have AT&T and Verizon doing the same. An exclusive deal now doesn’t make any sense and wouldn’t give Apple more profits because you have two other carriers that could sell twice as many phones than Sprint. The only reason AT&T got an exclusive deal with the iPhone in the beginning is because no other carrier thought the iPhone had any chance of being successful. Boy were they WRONG!
I hope that this is true because Sprint has great service everywhere I go unlike AT&T which is terrible. And Sprint still has unlimited data and their 4G is fast. Because this seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t.