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Marco.org: A Verizon reality check

There would almost definitely be a Verizon Wireless logo somewhere on the iPhone’s case, probably on both the front and back. There may be separate Verizon music, video, and app store icons that you can’t delete. At least one major feature may be disabled at Verizon’s request — say, turn-by-turn navigation — because they want to sell you their own version for an additional monthly fee. Verizon may want a cut of any iTunes or App Store revenue from on-device purchases, the cost of which Apple would probably happily pass along to either users or developers. (My guess: Developers.)

We all know that there is no way Steve would allow any of that. If this is what Verizon would ask for, then there is no wonder we don’t see an iPhone on Verizon (never mind the fact that there would be no way for Apple to scale a CDMA iPhone worldwide the way that they do the with the current iPhone).

Update: John Gruber goes a bit further:

Those are quite possibly sticking points in negotiations between the two companies, but I highly doubt Apple will cave on either. There will never be a logo on the front of an iPhone; the carrier gets a spot in the status bar, and that’s it. And the carrier-specific apps and services are exactly the sort of things that Apple is proudest of having eliminated with the iPhone model — that Apple defines and controls the entire experience, including the apps and the system updates.

I think that many of us were originally hoping that Apple would revolutionize the way we buy mobile phones in the US (what Google tried to do with the Nexus One). While this clearly didn’t happen, Apple did put a dent in how much control carriers have of the applications & firmware of the devices. There are still phones that suffer from carriers putting their own stuff on there (see the Backflip as an example). Actually, the Backflip is a perfect example of what AT&T would want to do with the firmware if they were in control. Can you imagine an iPhone where you couldn’t change the default search from Yahoo and where you couldn’t delete AT&T’s navigation app? Carriers wanting to control the firmware isn’t just a Verizon thing, it’s a US mobile industry thing. But with Apple, at least we know who controls the experience. And knowing Apple, controlling the experience is one of the most important things to them.

Source: marco