I am lucky enough to know someone who received their Verizon iPhone today. I took a picture of it, which you can click to zoom in if you wish. She mentioned she had a lot of trouble getting it activated, primarily due to the incompetence of the first Verizon support representative she talked to. The second one got her up and running right away.

That “Verizon” in the upper left corner sure looks weird!

I also perceived that the Verizon iPhone 4 seems rather weighty! I don’t recall the AT&T iPhone 4 being so hefty feeling. Does the CDMA radio weigh more? Can anyone else confirm this?

A recent survey found that of current Verizon smartphone users, 66% of BlackBerry and 44% of Android owners plan to switch to the iPhone. Given that Verizon has the largest subscriber base in the US, that’s a LOT of smartphone defections. Is this a devastating body blow or a knockout punch to those respective smartphone platforms? Only time will tell, but I must say I was shocked when I read the article reporting the survey.

Almost as impressive (at least for Verizon) is that the same research firm also concluded that 26% of current AT&T iPhone users will switch to Verizon. That’s a non-trivial number of subscribers jumping ship for Verizon. I expect that percentage to be higher in the areas most notorious for poor AT&T iPhone service, such as New York and San Francisco. I myself don’t plan on switching because I’m happy with AT&T’s service in my area and the ability to talk and use the data features of the phone at the same time is important to me. I wonder how many AT&T users realize that Verizon’s network does not support this ability? AT&T sure is trying to make sure people are aware of this with their latest series of commercials.

Regarding the respective wireless networks, the article does touch upon the question of whether Verizon’s network will be able to handle the crushing load all those shiny new iPhones will place upon it. Either Verizon will be able to boast about its superior network, or AT&T will be vindicated for its perceived service issues. Also interesting to watch will be if AT&T’s network will improve if a quarter of iPhone users switch to Verizon.

A thought just came to my mind. I wonder which provider Apple executives will use for their iPhones? Does anyone have any insight to Apple’s corporate cell phone policies?

According to early news reports, the Verizon iPhone has already sold out pre-orders in less than a day. Verizon is crediting the iPhone with the “most successful first day sales in the history of the company”, stating that it broke all previous records in the first two hours. “…when you consider these initial orders were placed between the hours of 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., it is an incredible success story,” said Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead. Another point to note is that these sales were only made to existing Verizon customers. Customers new to Verizon have yet to be able to purchase a Verizon iPhone.

So the questions of how well the Verizon iPhone would sell seem to have been answered. And it does not appear many people are holding off buying an iPhone until the summer.

The next important question will be how many people defect from AT&T (and other providers) when the general public is able to purchase Verizon iPhones on the 10th (with pre-orders on the 9th).

Another question that has been brought up is what Verizon will do with their customers who are not eligible for upgrade or promotional pricing for the iPhone. For many customers, it will be cheaper to switch to AT&T than to pay full price for a Verizon iPhone. Verizon may have a customer satisfaction crisis on their hands if they don’t tread carefully. It will be interesting to see how they deal with that.

Verizon and Apple have been running some interesting commercials lately. They are basically celebrating that the iPhone will finally be available on Verizon’s network starting February 10th and giving thanks to Verizon customers for waiting so long. Current Verizon customers will be able to pre-order the iPhone starting February 3rd (at 3 AM Eastern time!) and new Verizon customers will be able to buy starting February 10th. This turn of events will finally bring the answers to many questions, some of which have been around practically since the iPhone was originally released.

- How many Verizon iPhones will be sold?
- Will these sales cut into AT&T iPhone sales?
- How many AT&T customers will defect to Verizon?
- Will these sales cut into Android, Palm Pre, and Windows 7 phone sales on Verizon?
- In other words, will Verizon iPhone sales kill the other smartphone platforms?
- Will Verizon customers wait until the summer to buy an iPhone, since Apple generally releases new iPhones in June?
- Will those Verizon customers who buy now wish they had waited until the summer?
- Will Verizon’s network be able to handle the load, or will it buckle like AT&T’s network did in places?
- Will the fact that Verizon’s 3G network can’t support voice calls at the same time as data transmission (as AT&T’s network can do) affect sales?

The answers to these questions will very likely determine the future of the smartphone market, so keep an eye out on this developing story over the next few months.

What follows is a simple example of why, in my experience, most people who own Apple iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) claim they “love” them, while most owners of Android devices are ambivalent at best about their devices.

Let’s say you wanted to play the super popular game Angry Birds. If you own an iOS device, *any* iOS device including the first iPhone or iPod Touch, you can download and play Angry Birds from the Apple App Store. You do need to make sure your device is running version 3.0 or higher of the iOS software. But you likely are already running version 3.0 or higher because the upgrade process is suggested to users when they sync their iOS device with iTunes. The upgrade process, including a backup, is pretty automated and generally users just need to click OK a few times. However, if you need help with this process, you can call Apple’s AppleCare line, generally considered one of the best support services by any technology company.

However, if you own an Android device, buy a hat and get ready to hold on to it. First, you need to make sure that you don’t own one of the 17 devices that is not supported by Angry Birds, including some very popular devices such as the Droid Eris, T-Mobile G1, and HTC MyTouch 3G. Because there are so many different types of Android phones, developers have a hard time writing their software to work properly on all of them.

Also, you need to make sure you are running Android version 1.6 or higher. If you aren’t running version 1.6 or higher, you just need to follow a few “easy” steps (completely depending on which device you have) such as making sure you have all the vendor and carrier updates for your phone first, manually backing up all the data on your phone, making sure you have enough space on an SD card on your phone (you do have an SD card in your phone, right?) and making sure your phone is on a good Wi-Fi network. Oh and just so you know, depending on your device and carrier, you might be updating to the latest version of Android, 2.2, but not all phones and/or carriers support it, so you might be updating to version 2.0 or 2.1.

I hope your hold on your hat hasn’t loosened, because if you need help with all of this, you are the the mercy of “your friendly, neighborhood” tech support from your network provider (who doesn’t love calling their cell phone company!). If they run into any problems, they just might blame the phone vendor because the cell phone company doesn’t make the phone, they run the network. You might get lucky and get help from your phone vendor, but again they don’t make the software that runs on the phone, Google does. Of course, Google doesn’t provide support to end-users – that is the responsibility of the phone vendors or the network carriers.

Having fun yet? Or maybe you feel like one of the Angry Birds – smashing your head against a brick wall?