Verizon’s been building up over the last week to this supposedly major announcement to happen today. Today came and went, and the biggest thing to come out of that announcement? The iPhone. Naturally, there’s a sort of but not really appropriate level of fanpeopleism over it–it’s an Apple product; what’d you expect? Or rather, it’s a kind of dumbed down version of an Apple product–what you get when you cross a supposedly advanced piece of technology with a network that was advanced in 1997. Naturally, you do that, you wind up with half a dozen irritating limitations–things people who actually expect to be able to *use* the iPhone probably aren’t overly happy with.
- The phone runs on CDMA only, which is escentially older hardware–even Bell up here is moving entirely away from CDMA. Quickly.
- They’re saying it won’t run on Verizon’s 4g, LTE network. Because, apparently, people want it now now now. Hey, they waited this long.
- Being CDMA and CDMA only, if you’re on the phone, you can’t be doing anything on the internet–like, for example, looking up an address the person you’re talking to just gave you. Conversely, if you’re checking your email, or looking up that address, you can’t make/receive calls. Nifty. Except no not really.
- And don’t even get started on reception–of which Verizon has very little in supposedly well-populated areas.
And that’s just the issues we know about after today’s announcement. There will probably be more. All told, Verizon’s major announcement isn’t entirely all that major. Unless you’re an Apple loyalist–but then you’ve probably already got an iPad or something anyway. But, hey, someone might enjoy themselves. Just don’t ask them if they can map something out for you.
Update: If you really really really want an iPhone with one of these carriers, I’m sorry. But if you still do, the folks over at Wired have, as always, put together a pretty good comparison of what you can expect on each carrier’s network. Some of the limitations on that list for Verizon are in this entry, but it’s worth a read anyway. Just in case. Hey, you never know.