I believe Apple was so foolish in keeping their iPhone restricted to AT&T networks. Why restrict yourself in such a way? I know I would have bought one, but AT&T isn’t available in my area. I’m SURE I’m not the only one.
I suspect Apple’s suppliers were just able to meet demand of the ATT signups...
Foolish had NOTHING to do with it. Apple offered the iPhone to Verizon first but Verizon want the iPhone to be ala carted to death, wanting to charge for each and every "extra service" as they were already doing on their other phones, and refused to make the network changes necessary for things like visual voice mail to work... Cingular Wireless was willing to present the iPhone as a package and to make the changes... in exchange for a period of exclusivity in the US market. They were the ONLY carrier willing to do it. Cingular was bought by SBCGlobal... which then changed it's name to AT&T before the iPhone was released. The rest said "No Way." The "rest" in the USA were left waiting in the dust of the success of the iPhone... including Verizon and T-Mobile.
It has taken THREE years for an iPhone "wanna be" system, Android, to come close to offering on those other carriers what the iPhone has been offering. According to this, one-third of the Android and RIM purchasers would have preferred to have purchased an iPhone, if they could have. . . I bet it would have been higher, We shall see in January when the exclusivity to AT&T ends... and Verizon finally gets the iPhone.
Motorola Droid.... not so much. Can’t wait till iPhone comes to Verizon.
The original iPhone works on GSM wireless networks. AT&T and t-Mobile use GSM. This “new” Verizon iPhone will use CDMA which is not compatible with GSM. Sprint, Verizon and USCellular are CDMA networks.