Verizon/AT&T Hybrid iPhone Not Coming Next Year?

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More and more reports suggest that Verizon is going to get the iPhone next year. But not all those reports are saying the same thing. Some are talking about an LTE iPhone while others mention a hybrid iPhone capable of dealing with both UMTS and CDMA networks.

Today we find out that Qualcomm announced official plans for dual-carrier chips that will offer support for both CDMA/EVDO and UMTS/HSPA. Add to that a pinch of LTE and you end up with a chip that is ready to work in any wireless network in the USA. Such a chip will also connect to faster LTE networks and the Verizon/AT&T hybrid iPhone would therefore be a possibility.

The only problem with all that is that Qualcomm can’t make the chip available next year. In fact the company plans to have it ready only in 2011. That means manufacturers will still have to cook different phones for CDMA and UMTS carriers. That also happens to mean that a hybrid iPhone will only be available in about two years or so.

Analysts say that Apple will not be able to release a dual-mode iPhone next year so Verizon will probably get a CDMA version of Apple’s phone next year.

As always, there are no official details regarding Verizon’s future iPhone but analysts say that it’s likely for Apple to launch one in 2010. One more argument suggesting that the hybrid iPhone is only coming in 2011 is the fact that those dual-mode chips are going to be a little more expensive. Verizon and AT&T will want to keep the price of the future iPhones as low as possible in order to get as many new customers as possible.

On the other hand saying that certain things are impossible will get you nowhere. It wouldn’t be the first time that Apple could surprises us with its out of the box solution. That’s why we shouldn’t dismiss that hybrid iPhone immediately although it now seems rather unlikely to see it in stores next year. The only clear conclusion seems to be that a Verizon iPhone is definitely coming next year.