There have been a few rumors in this vein buzzing around here and there with little substance, but the latest is from a fairly confident source. 9to5 Mac got word from an unnamed tipster claiming that Apple is hard at work on a CDMA version of the iPhone 3G, which they are currently negotiating a deal for with US carrier Verizon Wireless.

He goes on to say that Apple and Verizon are currently negotiating, and hope to have things finalized by the end of the year, with an announcement in 2009, possibly even as early as Macworld ‘09.

There are a few reasons why this could be convincing. for one, Apple has been looking for EVDO and CDMA Engineers for months now. There’s also the fact that as big as AT&T is in the US, they don’t cover everywhere, and expanding into Verizon and Sprint would fill in the blanks, something that could be necessary to compete with Blackberry, Symbian, and Android. It would also make the situation in Canada much more competitive. They’ve even started selling unlocked iPhones in other countries.

Still, right now it’s impossible that Apple is making a CDMA version for Verizon given their exclusivity deal with AT&T in the US.

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