What happened so far?
The forums and news sites are again full of coverage about a hack of the german Pay-TV channel Premiere (forthcoming name: Sky Germany). As we already stated in april, 2009 this is a hoax. There are no evidences or proofs whatsoever. Anyway you’d better read on, why we believe searching for a hack is useless.
Businessweek.com reports that there are rumors about an iPhone Lite and an Apple Media Pad. Both could be distributed exclusively by Verizon Wireless. One or both of the devices could be introduced in this summer. Businessweek writes they were talking to someone who got his hands on a prototype of the iPhone Lite already. Moreover Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam confirmed that he has been talking to Steve Jobs during the last six months.Verizon Wireless is a U.S. american joint venture of Verizon Communications and the british Vodafone.
Businessweek writes as there is no deal done yet, from Apple’s point of view the Verizon talks may be helpful on certain levels. Verizon is also a potential Palm Pre distributer aswell as Sprint Nextel. Talks between Apple and Verizon could delay the introduction of Palm’s Pre. In contrast to Sprint who got 35 million customers a Palm Pre on Verizon could be a much harder competitor as they got 86 million customers. Moreover Apple can also use these talks to put pressure on AT&T to incur more expenses of the iPhone manufacturing.
Our comment
Remember this is rumors. We feel it is quite unlikely that Apple will no prolong their partnership with AT&T.