Verizon Rejected iPhone Deal

SnowDog74 writes "According to an article in USA Today, Verizon Wireless rejected an Apple deal over the iPhone. The article says that Verizon wasn't happy with the strict terms Apple demanded — a Verizon Wireless VP is quoted saying that Apple wanted a cut of monthly revenues and control of the customer relationship. What's perhaps equally interesting, however, is the implication from sources that say Cingular's exclusive 5-year deal with Apple applies within the United States only. If this is true, it undermines some of the criticism Apple has been receiving for their business strategy surrounding the iPhone, given the size of the cell-phone market outside the US."

interesting? no.

[grub]

What's perhaps equally interesting, however, is the implication from sources that say Cingular's exclusive 5-year deal with Apple applies within the United States only.

duh... perhaps Cingular isn't used outside the US (or very much?) They aren't in .ca, for example.

Re:interesting? no.

[Andy_R]

Exactly. Cingular have no visible presence at all here in Britain either, nobody expected that deal to apply here either.

As a Verizon customer

[twbecker]

that has no intention of switching to Cingular, iPhone or no, I can believe this. Verizon gives me the best coverage and call quality (which believe it or not is what I value in a cell phone company ;), but they demand total control of their phones and what you put on them in return. Between neutered Bluetooth and very few ways to get anything onto the device short of VCAST, they make Cingular's openness seem pretty tempting. But I've heard too many complaints about Cingular's network to consider switching.

Apple iPhone

[softcoder]

Well there has already been an announcement from a Canadian cell phone company that they will also be carrying the iPhone. You will note too that Apple chose GSM, the European and worldwide standard, as opposed to CDMA, a primarily NA one, for the phone. Does that tell you anything?

Whats the big deal?

[schnoid]

People act like the iphone is THE gadget that will ruin all other service providers if they don't have it. Considering its hardly even a smartphone because you can't even add software to it, it seems to be very lacking. Its only major benefit over something like a treo is the size and style of the phone. People need to get a grip. Other cell providers will not be going out of business over this.

Re:Service & retailers: the other side of the

[Anonymous Coward]

However you feel about the company, they do pride themselves on their customer satisfaction numbers.

I've never been a Verizon customer... but from what I've heard [blogspot.com], "customer satisfaction" is not their top priority.

Lucky us

[fermion]

While verizon might be good for some people, for those of us with good Cingular coverage, verizon just seems like an overpriced, pompous, and unresponsive company. They probably would have wanted to do stuff like cut out the address book feature and have music and video transferable only over their network.

While I understand that many people find Cingular to be joke, I am happy that cingular was flexible enough to adopt a phone that will likely force them to reevaluate their business model. They will certainly have rethink the data rates, and they are not likely to make any money off music downloads.

In a couple years, I am sure verizon, and it's customers, will be perfectly happy with the iPod knockoff Zunefone, with it's verizon only music downloads and it's DRM protected overpriced ringtones. I am sure everyone will continue to say how great Verizon is, and how the Zunefone surpasses the Apple phone is copies, although even today, with existing products, neither is true.

Five years? Thought it was two.

[straponego]

I could swear the clowntards at Cingular were crowing about a two year exclusive deal. Also, they mentioned that the Cingular name and logo would ALWAYS be on screen. Doesn't that mean they were effectively lying about the resolution, as some of the resolution will always be used only in a user-hostile fashion?

Ah well, the hardware looks great and it's certainly a platform which could handle almost everything you could want from the current generation. Too bad it's going to be on a crappy, slow network run by a company which is gloating about how badly it can treat its customers due to having a monopoly.

Good news: this will make Linux-based phones much better, much sooner.

Re:Five years?

[Frogbert]

Americans need to get with the program. I don't know how your phone systems work there, but in the rest of the world all you need to do to change phones is to buy the phone and put your sim card in it. What is going on over there?

Re:foreign iPhone sales

[maxume]

No doubt it has shifted, with the US portion being smaller, but here's one:

http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch2en/conc2 en/globalgdp.html [hofstra.edu]

Re:Cingular needs all the help it can get...

[maxume]

I'm pretty sure the worst phone company is the one the person you are asking last moved away from, and the best one is whatever they have, unless they think that they all suck.

Re:Five years?

[babbling]

What's so special about the phone? It can't run 3rd party applications, so the only interesting things it can do are:
- Play music crippled by DRM
- Surf the net
- A few features that all PDAs have, such as calendar and notes

The interface is nice because it's a big touch screen, but if my experience with Apple hardware is anything to go by, it won't be very durable.

The only thing the iPhone has over other PDA phones is Steve Jobs and Apple marketing it. By the time it comes out there will probably already be a different PDA phone with similar capabilities that can run 3rd party applications. That will lead to interesting possibilities while the completely proprietary Apple fanatics lock themselves into DRM hell.

Fuck Verizon

[Mix+Master+Nixon]

A loathsome company even by teleco standards, they really and truly despise their customers and Microsoft could learn a thing or two about pure rancid evil from them. I've had multiple friends and relatives tell tales of $1000 deposits to get cell phone service from them. That is so far out of proportion to reality it boggles the mind. The ONLY thing they have going for them is that they have better coverage than their competition - but it's not worth it, not even close, and the competition is rapidly catching up to them. All their phones are hobbled with their awful, locked-down software - even if it WASN'T locked down, their software is pure crap. When my contract with them is up, I run far far away, and they never get another dime of my money for anything, ever.

And I can't help but think that I'm not the only person who feels this way. Their customer-hostile antics will eventually bite them in the ass, and I am going to enjoy watching that happen as much as I'd enjoy watching Microsoft implode - maybe more.

Re:Fuck Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

Your friends and relatives had to pay deposits because they have piss-poor credit. Why is that Verizon's fault?

What is it about cell phone carriers that brings out the Big Big Whining? As in: "I went over my limit to the tune of $600 and Verizon wouldn't help me out." Well, duh. They're under no obligation to do so, no matter what one rep said. This is cell phone service, not electricity or water.

Cell phone companies are not your pals. They're massive faceless corporations dedicated to making a profit. Get over it.

I use Verizon for voice and data, have for years, and have had zero problems with them. When my i700 kicked the bucket for no apparent reason after a year, they sent me a new one for free. I used their EVDO service while traveling across the entire country last year (with the exception of western Kentucky where, apparently, VzW has decided that hill folk don't need service), and no other company can provide that coverage right now.

I pay my bills on time, every time, I don't go over my minutes, and--surprise!--both parties in the contractual relationship are content.

If you aren't content, vote with your wallet.

Re:Yet More Examples of Steve Jobs/Apple Arrogance

[rdoger6424]

Better a stevetatorship than a verizonocracy, in my opinion. If not for steve's control, verizon would attempt to lock down as many features as possible. This from a 3-year verizon customer.

Re:Five years?

[AaronLawrence]

The question wasn't "why do the carriers do it" but "why do americans put up with it?"

Land of the Free to be shafted and used by the corporations?

Re:Mono, what? Poly or something?

[timeOday]

It's laughable to discuss whether Apple has a monopoly in the cellphone market. Apple hardly even has a presense in the cellphone market. All they have is one insignificant product (the Rokker (sp?)) and one product announcement. It's amazing to me how many people assume Apple will be a big success in cellphones, just because they hit the jackpot once with the iPod. Who's to say the iPhone won't be more like the Netwon?

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[account_deleted]

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Premature death

[denoir]

This whole iPhone discussion is mot likely to be irrelevant as they presented it way too early. I discussed this with a friend of mine that works for Sony-Ericsson and apparently both Nokia and Ericsson are capable of crunching out a new model from design to distribution in roughly 2.5 months. I'm guessing that Motorola, Samsung and the others are no worse.

If they are inclined to do so (and given the hype around the iPhone), the established phone developers can come up with something very similar and have it out earlier and at a lower cost. Nokia's Aeon concept [engadgetmobile.com] looks like a promising candidate to build on as does the Siemens-Benq's Black Box [gizmodo.com] concept. In addition, IIRC the Aeon prototype was fuel cell powered.

At least from a European and especially Japanese perspective the iPhone is already severely outdated. No 3G, no GPS etc? It's a beautiful phone, but the eye candy can be imitated and cloned and used in a better phone. Assuming that the other phone companies are complete nitwits they can easily create a more attractive package and get it out earlier and cheaper.

Re:interesting? no.

[slumberer]

So it's still important to note that the deal with Cingular applies only to the US market because it opens up the possibility that the iPhone will be available to users in other countries.

Given that Apple on day one that they were going to release to Europe at the end of the year and Asia next year this was already obvious.