Don’t Buy The Verizon iPhone

Tomorrow, all signs point to a second American carrier being added to the iPhone: Verizon. But, my fellow geeks, let's keep one thing in mind: this is a Verizon event, and not an Apple event. That's a very important distinction. Gizmodo explains.

The day that Verizon gets the iPhone will be remembered as glorious by everybody who's dropped 12 calls in a row, been taunted by meaningless signal bars and just plain had a miserable AT&T experience. But they shouldn't buy one. Let's keep in mind what Apple—or rather, Verizon—is announcing, precisely. A new carrier for the iPhone 4. That's it. Not a new product. That's why Apple is ceding the stage to Verizon. If it was a truly new product, Apple would do all the talking.

Apple will release a new iPhone this summer. They always do. So should you jump on Verizon now and lock yourself in a two year contract when the iPhone 5 is less than six months away?

Apple will announce a new iPhone in June, as they have every year since 2008. It'll go on sale later that month, or in early July, as it has every year. That's six months from now. And it'll be better than the iPhone 4 in some tangible way. Maybe not on the order of the leap from the 3GS to the iPhone 4, but it'll have something new to offer. And everybody will want it, because that's how things seem to work with Apple: There's just enough new to make whatever Apple product you've currently got in your hand feel deficient in some way.

But the people who just bought on an iPhone 4 with Verizon will be locked into new 2-year contracts. Their new phones, though maybe better at holding calls better than their AT&T counterparts, will still be old news just a few months after birth. And what if the iPhone does the same thing to Verizon it did to AT&T? Let everybody else be an early adopter.

I can say personally that I've been salivating at the idea of having the iPhone on my preferred carrier, but I keep beating my head against the prices. The iPhone is expensive. And anyone that tells you otherwise needs to give their money to me. You have to have cell service, and you MUST have data service on top of that. A new carrier won't change that. To access all the iPhone's amazing features you need the unlimited data plan. Anything else is a waste of technology.

Certainly the iPhone 4 is an amazing device, regardless of what carrier it's on, and you will be very happy with it... but what if the iPhone 5 is better and you're locked in a two year contract?

So are you going to buy a Verizon iPhone?

Via Gizmodo.