Today, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that according to “people briefed on the matter,” Apple is currently working on two different versions of the iPhone due to release later this year. The first is the familiar GSM standard iPhone for AT&T, and it is being manufactured by Taiwanese manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., which is the same company that has been making the previous and current iPhones. This version is said to be released in the Summer.
The second iPhone, however, is said to support the CDMA wireless technology, which is used by Verizon Wireless and Sprint here in the United States. This new version will apparently be manufactured by Pegatron Technology Corp., which is a subsidiary of Taiwan’s ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Pegatron is set to start mass production of this CDMA capable device in September. No release date for the CDMA-compatible versiond has been revealed.
For a long time now, we have been hearing rumors and predictions from analysts that the iPhone exclusivity on AT&T is coming to an end, and that Apple will launch the iPhone with a carrier other than AT&T here in the United States. Verizon Wireless has been pinpointed as the most likely candidate for quite a while.
Apple, Pegatron, Hon Hai, and Verizon Wireless all declined to comment on the matter. AT&T, on the other hand, stated:
“There has been lots of incorrect speculation on CDMA iPhones for a long time. We haven’t seen one yet and only Apple knows when that might occur.”
Whether this report turns out to be true or not, we have still yet to see. This is definitely not the first time rumors about a Verizon Wireless iPhone surface. However, article co-writer Yukari Iwatani Kane has been spot-on most of the time when it comes to Apple-related rumors, which makes us think that Apple itself leaks the information in a controlled manner.
via Erictric