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From: John Navas on 20 Jul 2010 13:51
A story in the latest Wired magazine details how Steve Jobs and Apple
continuously became frustrated with AT&T. A number of times, switching
the iPhone over to Verizon was suggested until it was determined that
the cost to change the phone to Big Red's CDMA network was so high that
it put the kibosh on the plan. Toward the end of 2007, when the iPhone
was only a few months old, AT&T asked Apple if it could reduce the use
of bandwidth by making the YouTube client work only on Wi-Fi. Jobs
became perturbed at the idea of restrictions being placed on the device
and sent Scott Forstall, the chief of the iPhone software team, to meet
with Qualcomm who was supplying Verizon with their CDMA chips. The
bottom line-switching to a CDMA model was too complex and expensive. It
would require a full redesign of the phone and at the time, Verizon was
considered an "iffy" proposition-as much as AT&T was. The subject of
switching to Big Red came up often, and as one source noted, "Every time
the issue of switching came up, it always seemed to cause as many
problems as it solved."

....

Apple has made some mistakes of its own. Apple insiders confirmed that
the baseband software running the iPhone's main radio was full of bugs
when the device was originally launched, and was a contributing factor
to all of the dropped calls. And the selection of Infineon to provide
the main radio was-in hindsight-not a good idea because of the tech
firm's limited use in the U.S. prior to being used by Apple. Still, the
iPhone has been a huge money maker for Apple and remains the smartphone
that everyone is still trying to kill all these years later. And yes,
while sources say that leaving AT&T for Verizon has been brought up
about half a dozen times, there are no plans to switch carriers now.
Right now, the public perceives AT&T as the bad parent, putting a cap on
data usage, complaining in public about broadband usage and looking to
spank customers with a tiered data plan. Apple remains the good parent,
the one with the cool hardware and software that seems to have no limits
to what you can do with it.

MORE:
<http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/Apple-looked-into-switching-the-iPhone-to-Verizon-as-early-as-2007-article-a_12446.html>
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