News Flash: Verizon will get the iPhone—eventually

> In his latest note to investors issued on Tuesday, analyst Maynard J. Um with UBS Investment Research acknowledged a report from *The Wall Street Journal* on Monday, which said Apple is working on [two new iPhones](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/29/wsj_apple_working_on_two_new_iphones_including_one_for_verizon.html), including one for the Verizon network. Sources told the paper that CDMA iPhones are not scheduled to go into mass production until September. > > But Um said a Verizon launch probably won’t happen this year. Instead, a CDMA phone could be launched with other carriers, such as China Telecom and KDDI of Japan. So now the Wall Street Journal is in the Apple rumors business officially. And, of course, here we are a day later, with some other analyst refuting WSJs claims.

Keep in mind, the WSJ cited no real sources, other than “people briefed by the company”, whatever that means. That didn’t stop dozens of other web sites rehashing the story as if it were gospel.

Personally, I think Maynard Um here is more likely correct. That the Verizon iPhone is coming (duh) but probably not this year, or at the very least not by this summer. CDMA could easily be for carriers overseas, rather than here in the U.S.

Think about it: it’s already April. Apple needs to keep the focus on the iPad for at least another few weeks. WWDC is coming up in June. And we haven’t heard a peep about the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0 yet. That makes it very unlikely that iPhone OS will be released at WWDC, as everyone else seems to think. Developers will need time to work with the new SDK before release.

More likely, Apple will ANNOUNCE iPhone OS 4.0 at WWDC, with a release closer to September. Which means it will be at least that long until we see any new iPhones, as well.

We’ve seen in the past that Apple isn’t afraid to stretch out the upgrade cycles of its products to make room for newer products. Clearly, the same team that develops iPhone OS has been just a bit busy working on getting the iPad together. They’ll need a short break and then some time to add all the new goodies to iPhone 4.0.

Especially considering that Apple plans to charge for OS upgrades on the iPad, it’s not likely that they will ship a major update to the OS after only a few months of the iPad’s official release.

My best guess is that we’ll see iPhone 3.2 released sometime in April. 4.0 will be announced at WWDC in late June. 4.0 and new iPhones (with or without Verizon) will be announced in September or October, depending on what Apple wants to do with the iPod and iMac release schedules. Maybe they will lump the iPhone in with the iPods, but more likely, I think it may be time for Apple to start treating new iPods (at least the nanos and shuffles, anyway) like most Mac upgrades: with a simple press release. There are only so many press events you can throw in a single year, if you expect people to remain excited. And there is only so much money you can get from the average consumer without giving them a break now and then, too. Staggered releases are always better than an all-at-once approach.

Somewhere in there, Apple needs to tell us what’s going on with OS X on the Mac. New notebooks are clearly around the corner, too.

It’s a pretty busy time over there in Cupertino. It will be very interesting to see how Apple manages to balance the releases of all these products.