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Verizon iPhone 4 March 2011 debut dings Verizon iPhone 5 launch date

Verizon iPhone 4 March 2011 debut dings Verizon iPhone 5 launch date

The Verizon iPhone 4’s early 2011 arrival, which many had interpreted to mean January 2011, is now being pegged as March 2011 by at least one analyst. This new date, if accurate, raises questions about the future of the iPhone roadmap. Apple has historically released a new iPhone model each June or July, going back to 2007. If that pattern holds, the iPhone 5 will arrive in June or July of 2011.

In such a case, a Verizon iPhone 4 in January makes sense, as it would allow Apple to begin selling the iPhone to Verizon customers a good six months earlier than if it simply waited for the arrival for the iPhone 5 to do so. But a March arrival date for the Verizon iPhone would raise the question of whether the iPhone 5 is indeed on track for early summer release.

Sure, Apple wants to stop the rise of Verizon’s Droid platform in its tracks sooner rather than later, particularly seeing as how many of those Droid buyers freely admit that they actually want an iPhone but aren’t willing to leave Verizon. But the idea that Apple would take the trouble to put a Verizon-compatible iPhone 4 on the market for a mere three months, particularly with so much of the public aware that Apple releases new-generation iPhones in the summer, would border on overreaction.

Unless, of course, the iPhone 5 isn’t coming this summer after all.

What could be the holdup? The most obvious candidate would be the impending arrival of the 4G network on both Verizon and AT&T. If Apple plans to build the iPhone 5 to be 4G-compatible, then it could hold the iPhone 5’s release until the 4G network has been built out sufficiently on both carriers. Or Apple could opt to release the iPhone 5 at separate times on separate carriers, depending on each carrier’s 4G progress. In other words, the arrival of a Verizon iPhone 4 in March, followed by the arrival of the AT&T iPhone 5 in say, June, and then the arrival of a Verizon iPhone 5 sometime after that, is entirely possible. Apple has never rolled out an iPhone in that manner before. But then again, Apple has never previously had the iPhone available on multiple U.S. carriers.

All of the above is of course dependent on the Verizon iPhone 4’s actual arrival date. One analyst claiming March 2011 does not make for a launch date. But if the March launch does turn out to be true, it could raise more questions than it answers. Here’s more on the Verizon iPhone.

[Thanks: http://www.beatweek.com]

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