Former Apple Employee Spills All: Apple & Verizon

Rumors about the iPhone coming to Verizon have been plentiful lately. Now, a former Apple employee claims to have information about Apple’s plans to bring the iPhone to Verizon, according to Cult of Mac on Wednesday. The unnamed source provided details about an LTE iPhone and the Apple/AT&T contract.

The source provided details about Apple’s thinking related to CDMA and LTE, namely that Apple wouldn’t release an iPhone via Verizon that’s not compatible with Verizon’s new LTE network. “He’s [Mr. Jobs] too forward-looking. Why release a nifty new phone that’s almost immediately obsolete? There’s no way,” Leander Kahney paraphrased. The source noted that in the summer of 2011, low power LTE chip sets will be available.

If true, that suggests that the boatload of CDMA phones Apple is said to be making really are headed to China. There has been recent speculation that Apple is making CDMA iPhones for China Telecom, China’s number three cell service provider.

Cult of Mac’s source also laid out a plausible timeline for the Apple & AT&T contract that went into effect in July 2006 and expires in July 2011.

Not much information has heretofore been available about the Apple & AT&T contract, but the timeline provided and the LTE technology window all seems to fit together — perhaps even too conveniently.

This story contradicts the Wall Street Journal’s recent assertion that Apple is making CDMA phones for Verizon.

As usual, until we get more concrete information about Apple’s plans, this item will just have to be filed away in our collective consciousness as we piece together various rumors and speculation. If anything, it also suggests that not even sources who claim to have inside information all have the same coherent picture of Apple’s plans. As we know, it’s not unusual for Apple senior management to supply different stories to different employees in order to identify leaks.