OK, so you are probably thinking that I’m a complete douche for the title of this article, but I’d like to argue my point in a slightly coherent manner for a minute or two.
FIRST: AT&T has the biggest GSM network in the country. I’ve seen T-Mobile carts selling unlocked iPhones or offer to unlock your iPhone for you for free with purchase of service. Despite their desire to attract folks to their service, T-Mobile still sucks compared with AT&T in my experience. I’m sure this varies by geography, but the vast majority of folks I’ve spoken with have shared similar experiences, and even my own T-Mobile prepaid SIM gets worse coverage in my W810i than AT&T did before I switched to the iPhone.
SECOND: I consider it pretty unlikely that Apple would build a CDMA version of the iPhone for use within the United States on either Verizon or Sprint and VERY limited use outside of the United States. Building a GSM phone is much smarter, economically speaking, because it works in almost every country with a mobile phone provider. I’m not going to give you percentages of GSM vs. CDMA, but outside of the US, CDMA is almost worthless. Plus, it looks like both Verizon and AT&T are going to be moving their networks to 4G LTE technology.
THIRD: The rumor mill is stating that Apple is building a custom version of the iPhone for China that lacks a wifi chipset under pressure from the Chinese government. I’m not confident that Apple would go so far as to make a nationally-tailored version of the iPhone without wifi. However, the market in China is much larger in terms of raw population, and may in fact be larger than many major wireless markets currently served by the single physical iPhone build currently being sold. Regardless of that, wouldn’t it be easier to build, test, and qualify a device with one component removed (that little Broadcom wifi chipset) than with a completely different radio with new and varied characteristics? This version neutered for Chinese consumption seems much more plausible than the CDMA device, but I still think it’s probably BS. But what do I know.
The main thing I have with all of these dumbfuck technology pundits is that nobody seems to realize that Apple has carefully chosen its preferred wireless carriers based on their common network characteristics: GSM. Even in Japan, they chose to work with SoftBank instead of NTT DoCoMo because DoCoMo doesn’t operate a GSM standard network. For Apple to switch carriers to anyone other than T-Mobile (in the US market) would create a fuckload of implementation problems that are completely isolated to the US market. And, I’m sure Apple has studied this, T-Mobile’s network kinda blows. AT&T is no fucking gem of an operator, but the realistic alternatives are no better.