I wrote an “experimental” article back in August where I claimed Apple was going to release the iPhone on Sprint. Of course, this was just a hoax, but I wanted to gauge reaction when people thought they could get an iPhone on Sprint. However, the point of the article was that I thought Apple could “nuke” the landscape of smartphones on a wireless carrier if they simply floated the rumor that the iPhone would be coming to that network “in the near future”. I figured that there were (and still are) many people who really wanted an iPhone but didn’t want to or couldn’t leave their carrier. If these people were given a glimmer of hope that they could soon get an iPhone, they would put off purchasing another smartphone in anticipation of getting an iPhone. Obviously, that kind of thinking could be devastating to the sales of other smartphones trying to gain a foothold in the market.
Recently, there have been a lot of articles being written suggesting that Apple is going to release the iPhone later this year on a multitude of carriers. As I’ve written previously, I highly doubt that Apple is going to release the iPhone for any carriers that are not using the same technology as AT&T’s current network (GSM/GPRS) or their future 4G network (LTE). It simply doesn’t seem to make sense for Apple to devote significant resources to creating an iPhone for network technologies that are soon to be out of use. So the flurry of articles recently written make me wonder if Apple is “dropping the bomb” and trying to derail the momentum of other smartphones.
It seems to make sense. While the various Google phones are not really selling all that well as compared to the iPhone, they have gained a fair amount of “mindshare”, meaning that they are starting to be acknowledged by people as a relevant competitor in the marketplace. However a carefully calculated strike could significantly slow down their momentum. Perhaps Apple feels that this is the time to put the squeeze on their competitors. Perhaps it has something to do with the timing of the iPad. Perhaps it means nothing and Apple is not intentionally doing anything. Or perhaps the articles are correct and we will in fact see the iPhone on other networks this year. But I doubt that last sentence.
