Verizon and Apple will reportedly announce a LTE iPhone 4 right after Christmas.

• Verizon held management training for iPhone sales last week
• Verizon had functioning iPhones (LTE-capable) in management hands for the training sessions
• Formal announcement coming right “after christmas”, was
• The formal announcement of the iPhones Verizon debut is coming right after Christmas; “Apparently ATT’s final demand so as to maximize ATT’s Christmas iPhone sales”
• The Verizon iPhone will be immediately available upon formal announcement
• Device has been “100% cooked for quite a while” and already shipping in bulk to Verizon warehouses
• The Verizon iPhone is not being shipped to any 3rd-party retailers in an effort to control leaks
• Verizon agreed to take 100% responsibility for security, so all the devices will be in their hands until the official announcement date, and they will then distribute through channels in massive manner (hence early stockpiling)
• The new iPhone is an LTE device and that fact – the only “LTE iPhone,” exclusive to Verizon – will be the main marketing theme; i.e. “For the new ’4G’ (cough) verizon network” that Verizon has already started promoting
• As rollout of LTE not actually widespread, Verizon iPhone will have multi-band chip backward compatibility with regular CDMA
• iPhone 5 was planned to debut in summer as LTE-only, for all contracted carriers, but the clock is ticking and nobody thinks either Verizon or AT&T can get to critical mass to offer an LTE-only version
• Steve Jobs is said to be upset that carriers cannot seem to get their LTE act together more quickly
• Apple is “helping” U.S. carriers (money?) to build out LTE more quickly

Verizon launched its 4G LTE Network in 38 major metropolitan areas on December 5th. The company expects 4G LTE average data rates in real-world, loaded network environments to be 5 to 12 megabits per second (Mbps) on the downlink and 2 to 5 Mbps on the uplink.

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In the short history of smartphones, handsets carrying all but one of the major operating systems have been available to multiple U.S. carriers. That exception is iOS, for which the iPhone has been the only model. Of course, the iPhone’s close cousin, the iPod touch, is available regardless of carrier (or service fees, for that matter), and has sometimes been referred to as “the iPhone for Verizon users.” Ultimately, though, it’s not. While the iPod touch provides access to a dizzying array of functionality that will likely expand this fall, its lack of an integrated cellular radio and attendant voice calling features means that it cannot assume that primary role in one’s digital life in the same way that many smartphones have.
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Apple has suffered another embarrassment. A security breach has exposed iPad owners including dozens of CEOs, military officials, and top politicians. They—and every other buyer of the cellular-enabled tablet—could be vulnerable to spam marketing and malicious hacking.

The breach, which comes just weeks after an Apple employee lost an iPhone prototype in a bar, exposed the most exclusive email list on the planet, a collection of early-adopter iPad 3G subscribers that includes thousands of A-listers in finance, politics and media, from New York Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson to Diane Sawyer of ABC News to film mogul Harvey Weinstein to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It even appears that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s information was compromised.

It doesn’t stop there. According to the data we were given by the web security group that exploited vulnerabilities on the AT&T network, we believe 114,000 user accounts have been compromised, although it’s possible that confidential Read More

AT&T’s made it pretty clear how this upgrade sitch is going to go down for existing customers moving to an iPhone 4 on the 24th of the month, but if you want to double-check and make sure you’re good to go (we can’t blame you), there’s an easy way that was briefly mentioned yesterday: dial *639# on your current phone. You’ll be returned a text message from AT&T detailing your situation — either you’ll be told you can get a full upgrade price (meaning $199 / $299 for the 16GB and 32GB, respectively) or you’ll be eligible at some particular date in the future. Not all’s lost in the latter case — you can still pay $200 more for the phone as an “early upgrade,” which is less than the no-commitment price of $599 / $699. We’ll have Read More

So look, we know the dilemma you’re in. You nabbed that iPhone 3G or 3GS a little late in the game, and now you’ve got to wait until December in order to snag the iPhone 4 at a discounted rate. Lucky for you, Apple and AT&T have worked to give folks like you a little leniency, with existing AT&T users able to upgrade to the iPhone 4 “up to six months early.” In other words, if your current iPhone contract expires at any point in 2010, you’re now eligible to grab an iPhone 4 at $199 (16GB) or $299 (32GB) so long as you agree to stay faithful to a carrier you may or may not loathe for another two years. Good thing you’ve got until the 24th to really think it over.
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Some very interesting quotes from Steve Jobs speaking at the All Things D8 conference courtesy of Engadget.

On Flash:
“Apple is a company that doesn’t have the resources that everyone else has. We choose what tech horses to ride, we look for tech that has a future and is headed up. Different pieces of tech go in cycles… they have summer and then they go to the grave. If you choose wisely, you save yourself an enormous amount of work. We have a history of doing this. The 3 1/2 floppy. We made that popular. We got ride of the floppy altogether in the first iMac. We got rid of serial and parallel ports. You saw USB first in iMacs. We were one of the first to get rid of optical drives, with the MacBook Air. And when we do this, sometimes people call us crazy. Sometimes you have to pick the right horses. Flash looks like it had its day but it’s Read More

AT&T has announced the increase of their Early Termination Fee for customers who want to opt out of their smartphone contract.

For customers who enter into new two-year service agreements in connection with the purchase of our more advanced, higher end devices, including netbooks and smartphones, the ETF will increase to $325, and be reduced by $10 for each month that you remain with us as a customer during the balance of your two-year service agreement. After that, the ETF will no longer apply.

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