Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as always when we record such
Speaker 1: podcasts as this, his senior writer, Jonathan Strickland. One more thing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was not a movie quote, but that was a
Speaker 1: quote in honor of our subject today. So let me
Speaker 1: get something out of the way. I was wrong. I'm
Speaker 1: very rarely wrong, but this time I was wrong because
Speaker 1: back in our prediction show for eleven, I said that
Speaker 1: would come and go without the iPhone coming to Verizon.
Speaker 1: Then I went to c S and there was mentioned
Speaker 1: that Verizon was going to make a big announcement that
Speaker 1: week after c e S, and by the time I
Speaker 1: left ce S, it was all but a certainty that
Speaker 1: that announcement would be the iPhone would come to Verizon,
Speaker 1: and low and behold, such was the case. Indeed, I
Speaker 1: think this is the first time that I've actually gotten
Speaker 1: one of our predictions right to the point where I
Speaker 1: might actually win a point for it in our recap. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we'll find out when that when December rolls around,
Speaker 1: and it's a lot of time between now and then
Speaker 1: whoever is holding the red pen of death. And the
Speaker 1: amazing thing is it only took until January twelve for
Speaker 1: us to get that far Man, twelve days into the
Speaker 1: year before I got one totally wrong. Oh Man. So yes,
Speaker 1: at the time we were recording the podcast that Verizon
Speaker 1: iPhone has been announced officially but has not yet been
Speaker 1: released officially, and according to our publication schedule, this episode
Speaker 1: should come out even before you can get your your
Speaker 1: hot little hands on a Verizon I phone, but not
Speaker 1: too long before, because uh, they're starting to allow pre
Speaker 1: orders starting at the beginning of February. Correct, Yes, February third,
Speaker 1: if you are an existing Verizon customer um, which is
Speaker 1: very nice. A lot a lot of companies actually sort
Speaker 1: of prefer to push the bonus out to the new
Speaker 1: people to get them to come on board, but in
Speaker 1: this case, Verizon is offering them the phone on February
Speaker 1: third for pre orders and then uh for everyone else,
Speaker 1: h February t So, but it's not going to be
Speaker 1: long and they had this had to have been in
Speaker 1: the works for quite some time in order for Apple
Speaker 1: to turn around that many iPhones, because a lot of
Speaker 1: people are expecting the iPhone to do very well, indeed
Speaker 1: on Verizon. Yeah, Now, if you're not familiar with the
Speaker 1: way the United States major carriers kind of fall into place,
Speaker 1: I thought you were about to say, if you're not
Speaker 1: familiar with the iPhone, I'm sorry. What if you're not
Speaker 1: familiar with the iPhone? I mean not everyone is, but
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that most of the people on the podcast
Speaker 1: from the past. Uh, it's my little I T crowd moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the United States carriers are a little different than
Speaker 1: they are elsewhere in the world. Right, Yeah, well, and
Speaker 1: in the United States we have lots of different carriers,
Speaker 1: but we have four major ones, right, and the biggest
Speaker 1: of them all as far as the number of customers
Speaker 1: is a Verizon. Yes, so it goes correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, I'm doing this from memory. It's Verizon, a
Speaker 1: T and T Sprint T mobile. That is correct as
Speaker 1: as of this recording. Right. So iPhone, of course in
Speaker 1: the United States was exclusive to a T and T
Speaker 1: for the first several years of its existence. Yes, in fact,
Speaker 1: they it was. It was it was public knowledge that
Speaker 1: the agreement was private. They had some sort of deal
Speaker 1: that and unknown amount of time and they just said, yes,
Speaker 1: it is exclusive to a T and T for well,
Speaker 1: we're not telling you for how long, but it's exclusive. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The the number I saw more often than not was
Speaker 1: five years, which is that's what I based my prediction
Speaker 1: off of, because by my by my reckoning, it would
Speaker 1: mean that would be the first year outside of the
Speaker 1: exclusivity agreement, assuming that it was not renewed. Right and clearly,
Speaker 1: whatever the length of time it was, it's over now.
Speaker 1: Uh So why would it makes sense from a customer
Speaker 1: base that the Apple would want the iPhone to get
Speaker 1: onto Verizon because Verizon has got more customers than T.
Speaker 1: But there are problems with that, Yes, there are problems
Speaker 1: with that. What's one of the what's the biggest one?
Speaker 1: The biggest one would be the difference in technology used
Speaker 1: for by the different carriers to handle voice and data
Speaker 1: um on on a T and T and T mobile systems. Uh,
Speaker 1: they use g s M, which is I guess it's
Speaker 1: fair to say the global standard. The most places in
Speaker 1: the world use GSM. There are a few other countries
Speaker 1: besides the United States that have the other one that
Speaker 1: we're about to talk about. But most yes, c dm AY,
Speaker 1: but most use G s M would and Sprint next,
Speaker 1: Hell and UH and Verizon use c d M A,
Speaker 1: which is in the United States is by far the
Speaker 1: largest market for c d M A technology. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: which is both a good and a bad thing, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you do just domestic travel, if you
Speaker 1: live in the United States and you just do domestic travel,
Speaker 1: c d M A is great technology. You've got pretty
Speaker 1: good coverage pretty much anywhere you go. If you do
Speaker 1: global travel, then that becomes a problem. You don't really
Speaker 1: have a phone capable of making calls on other networks
Speaker 1: because the technology is not compatible. That's the really important thing.
Speaker 1: Is c d M A and G s M they
Speaker 1: don't work with each other, right, but you can get Ah,
Speaker 1: there are phones out there that have chips for both. Right. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some of the c d M A phones have a
Speaker 1: SIM card slot because you know, they number is essentially
Speaker 1: baked into the hardware for c d M A phones. Um.
Speaker 1: Whereas if you have a G s M phone and
Speaker 1: you've actually taken it apart a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe just taking the battery out to see the SIM
Speaker 1: card or watch them put it in at the store.
Speaker 1: You know that basically your number and your phone book
Speaker 1: in some cases and some other information is stored on
Speaker 1: that card. And you can take your SIM card out
Speaker 1: of your phone if you have a G s M
Speaker 1: phone and put it in another phone and there you're
Speaker 1: ready to go. Um, but not so much with a
Speaker 1: C d M a phone. And people who take who
Speaker 1: have Verizon, for example, and go to a country where
Speaker 1: there is G s M if they have one of
Speaker 1: the dual mode phones, I'm not sure exactly how you
Speaker 1: would refer to that, but um, there's a slot where
Speaker 1: you can insert a G s M card and you can,
Speaker 1: you know, get a SIM card and snap it in
Speaker 1: place and use your phone. Um. Of course I'm sure
Speaker 1: that means that you're using a different phone number, but
Speaker 1: at least you can use your phone. So the the
Speaker 1: news about the iPhone coming to Verizon was both surprising
Speaker 1: and not surprising. It was not surprising because, of course,
Speaker 1: like I said, you know, the Verizon has a lot
Speaker 1: of customers, and of course, if you if you make
Speaker 1: a product, you want to hit as many customers as
Speaker 1: you possibly can in. It was surprising in the sense
Speaker 1: that it meant that that that Apple had to re
Speaker 1: engineer some of its phone in order for it there
Speaker 1: to be a C d M A version, right, that's right,
Speaker 1: and just couldn't just PLoP out the other, you know,
Speaker 1: the G S M based one, and with a couple
Speaker 1: of changes. That actually takes quite a bit. And there's
Speaker 1: some differences between the Verizon version and the A T
Speaker 1: and T version that are carrier based, not necessarily hardware based.
Speaker 1: That's true. Um, you can see evidence of the difference
Speaker 1: when you actually look at the phone. There's a visible difference. Um.
Speaker 1: If you look at the antennas, which is uh famously
Speaker 1: now after antenna gate, the band around the outside of
Speaker 1: the iPhone four Um, you can see that the antennas
Speaker 1: of a Verizon iPhone and a an A T and
Speaker 1: T iPhone are joined differently in different places, and in fact,
Speaker 1: one of the buttons is moved a little bit. So
Speaker 1: if you get a bumper for an A T and
Speaker 1: T phone, it's not going to fit your Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: seen that A T and T is starting to carry
Speaker 1: um or at least uh, I don't know if they're
Speaker 1: carrying it, but there are a third party bumper cases
Speaker 1: out there that are designed to be universal, so they're
Speaker 1: the openings are a little larger so that it can
Speaker 1: accommodate a button, whether it's been moved over a little
Speaker 1: bit or not. It's the ring or mute switch if
Speaker 1: you're if you're keeping score at home. It also means
Speaker 1: that because there are the antenna's aligned a different way
Speaker 1: on the Verizon phone, that there's a totally new way
Speaker 1: that you can hold it wrong. Actually I don't know
Speaker 1: that for a fact, I've not used a Verizon iPhone.
Speaker 1: The c net report that I read said that they
Speaker 1: had tried it out and they couldn't could not find
Speaker 1: a grip of death. As if you're if you're unfamiliar
Speaker 1: with this, we should we should actually I guess mention
Speaker 1: this um a T and T s iPhone or the
Speaker 1: iPhone that that was used with a T and T UH.
Speaker 1: When the iPhone four first came out, it was criticized
Speaker 1: because if you touch certain parts of the antenna, they're
Speaker 1: actually uh different pieces to the antenna that go around
Speaker 1: the outside the stainless old band that you see then
Speaker 1: around the outside and if you touch it in a
Speaker 1: certain way, you create a short circuit that drops calls.
Speaker 1: UM and you know it. The problem exists more for
Speaker 1: some people than others. Some say that it has to
Speaker 1: do with the electrolytes and your sweaty hands. Some people
Speaker 1: say whether or not it's you're left handed, because you'd
Speaker 1: be holding the phone in your left hand and that
Speaker 1: would make that would mean that you would be more
Speaker 1: likely to make that connection. Yeah, the problem is solved
Speaker 1: pretty easily if you put a rubber bumper around the
Speaker 1: outside of it. Um. But of course it people have
Speaker 1: a pretty high standard for Apple's iPhone. And uh, the
Speaker 1: the idea that it wasn't perfect. Uh, you know, made
Speaker 1: some people laugh with glee and other people, you know,
Speaker 1: stamp their feet. Yeah. The and and we should also
Speaker 1: add that this was a problem that was new to
Speaker 1: the iPhone floor because the previous iPhone versions did not
Speaker 1: have the antenna exposed like that. Yeah. So the iPhone
Speaker 1: on Verizon, we have not played with it yet. UM.
Speaker 1: I have seence some reviews. I saw the Consumer Reports
Speaker 1: was actually cautioning people against buying it, and I've seen
Speaker 1: the same sentiment echoed throughout the blogosphere, and various tech
Speaker 1: journalists have said the same thing, and essentially what their
Speaker 1: point is is not that the iPhone and Verizon is
Speaker 1: a bad product or that Verizon offers a poor service,
Speaker 1: but rather that if Apple is following its normal m O,
Speaker 1: then we should see an update to the iPhone this
Speaker 1: summer tends to be in June that we see these
Speaker 1: these announcements, and that it may not be immediately available
Speaker 1: when the announcements made, but shortly thereafter it tends to
Speaker 1: be available. So if there's an iPhone five on the
Speaker 1: way or some sort of update to the iPhone four,
Speaker 1: kind of like the way the the iPhone three GS
Speaker 1: was an update to the iPhone three G, then it
Speaker 1: makes sense to wait instead of purchasing an iPhone four
Speaker 1: now and then a few months later you're you're faced
Speaker 1: with the fact that you know your your devices already
Speaker 1: not obsolete but outdated. So um buy or beware, I guess.
Speaker 1: I mean, it really depends on what you've been used
Speaker 1: to write. I mean, there are plenty of people out
Speaker 1: there who are still using uh, dumb phones or feature phones.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at one, I think, so, yeah, there are
Speaker 1: plenty of people out there who have phones that they
Speaker 1: don't fall into the smartphone bracket, and they've been waiting
Speaker 1: for something like the iPhone. You know, they aren't necessarily
Speaker 1: um enamored of the other operating systems that are available
Speaker 1: out there, whether it's Android or Windows Phone seven or
Speaker 1: or Blackberries. Uh, you know, the RIM operating system or
Speaker 1: Palms webOS or Palms Web. But well, you know, where
Speaker 1: are you gonna buy one of those? Um? So they're
Speaker 1: there are very few differences actually in the iPhone for
Speaker 1: that that you would actually notice. I mean, they're the cost,
Speaker 1: the price point is the same for this team gigabyte version.
Speaker 1: Uh for the thirty two. UM, I don't really know
Speaker 1: what the data plan is going to be yet, that's
Speaker 1: that's true. And it doesn't, as as you said, have
Speaker 1: a SIM card slot, so you will not be able
Speaker 1: to use it on a GSM network. But it does
Speaker 1: have data, you're right, and um uh, you know Verizon
Speaker 1: still has unlimited data plans if I'm not mistaken, right,
Speaker 1: We don't know if that's gonna dropped, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't know if that's going to stay the same once
Speaker 1: the iPhone goes live. We also don't know apparently right
Speaker 1: now anyway, as soon as the iPhone hits the store shelves,
Speaker 1: it will not be capable of doing simultaneous data advoice,
Speaker 1: which means you can't have a phone call while you
Speaker 1: are surfing the web at the same time. But supposedly
Speaker 1: that an update will follow, possibly in the spring. Okay,
Speaker 1: what I had read, Now I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is true. And what I read was that
Speaker 1: was a problem with c d M a more than
Speaker 1: it was with the iPhone's ability to do that. I
Speaker 1: think I think it's a are your issue, not a
Speaker 1: hardware issue, which is why Verizon, which is why Verizon
Speaker 1: said they were working on it and they expected to
Speaker 1: fix that by spring. Okay, yeah, I was. I was
Speaker 1: curious when I read that and wrote that down, went
Speaker 1: really is that? Okay? It's one of those things where,
Speaker 1: I mean, you see these problems pop up in devices occasionally,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you just your left scratching your head about it.
Speaker 1: And really it just means that there's stuff going on
Speaker 1: behind the scenes that we're not privy to, and um,
Speaker 1: and that's why, I mean, it probably makes perfect sense
Speaker 1: from their perspective. Now, there is another capability that the
Speaker 1: Verizon iPhone has as that, as you said, is not
Speaker 1: necessarily tied to hardware, and that's its ability to function
Speaker 1: as a hot spot for WiFi. Yeah. Actually the the A,
Speaker 1: T and T one could do that, but that feature
Speaker 1: is not enabled the United States by carrier specific So
Speaker 1: by that we mean that you could create a little
Speaker 1: hot spot with your phone and connect up to I
Speaker 1: think it's five other devices to it. Yes, that's what
Speaker 1: I have, So your phone would be connected to uh
Speaker 1: the three G network. Um. Because that's another thing we
Speaker 1: should point out is the Verizon iPhone does not work
Speaker 1: on their LT network. Yes, and that's that's that's true
Speaker 1: of the A, T and T iPhone four as well.
Speaker 1: They're both three G network phones. So that also would
Speaker 1: sort of lead one to believe, especially with the push
Speaker 1: for four G right now, that it might be a
Speaker 1: good time to just for a couple of months do
Speaker 1: anything and see how that plant that plays out, because
Speaker 1: I don't know if either of these phones will be upgradeable.
Speaker 1: I kind of doubt it, right yeah, because usually you
Speaker 1: need another chip in order because LTE, at least LTE anyway,
Speaker 1: is it a different technology, um with if you're looking
Speaker 1: at uh the hsp A plus the the old technology
Speaker 1: that gets four G speeds. That's the that's the technology
Speaker 1: that T Mobile refers to as four G on their phones,
Speaker 1: because you're getting four G speeds even though it's not
Speaker 1: technically a four G technology. Um, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: would assume you didn't even have to have special equipment
Speaker 1: for that. I know that my iPhone is capable of
Speaker 1: doing that and I love it. But yeah, it's getting
Speaker 1: back to the hot spot. The idea here is that
Speaker 1: your your phone is connecting to data through the three
Speaker 1: G network and then creates a Wi Fi hot spot
Speaker 1: that other devices can connect to. So if you have
Speaker 1: a happen to have another device there that does not
Speaker 1: have three G capability or doesn't have any uh has,
Speaker 1: it's just WiFi only, you could connect it to your
Speaker 1: phone via the WiFi and then get data that way. Now, um,
Speaker 1: there's something else that I thought about. I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this. It was, you know, going over the idea
Speaker 1: in my head and going okay, well, there other than
Speaker 1: a few differences in the technology required, Um, the iPhone
Speaker 1: four is not all that different from the one that's
Speaker 1: on a T and T uh a T and T
Speaker 1: S network. But I do think this is kind of
Speaker 1: an interesting move because um by and large phones, at
Speaker 1: least in the United States, phones are specific to carrier,
Speaker 1: and now we're taking the almost exactly the same phone
Speaker 1: and moving it to multiple carriers. And I wonder if
Speaker 1: that's going to open doors for other manufacturers such as
Speaker 1: motor Role for example, could you have the droid move
Speaker 1: to Sprint so you have it on Sprint and Verizon,
Speaker 1: or you know LG S or HTC S phones, will
Speaker 1: they the same model be available other than you know,
Speaker 1: C D M A or GSM or actually most of
Speaker 1: the carriers are going with LTE for four G, so
Speaker 1: it seems like it would just be that much more portable.
Speaker 1: Well this, well this, do you think this is going
Speaker 1: to open the door to, uh, give the manufacturers more
Speaker 1: control over which carriers they can shop their phones too. Well,
Speaker 1: we've seen some of that before, like Nokia has phones
Speaker 1: that are appearing on on multiple carriers, but in those
Speaker 1: cases they tend to not be supported by the carriers
Speaker 1: in a subsidized way. Because in the United States, one
Speaker 1: of the other big things that's different from a lot
Speaker 1: of the other countries in the world is that, uh,
Speaker 1: most of the phones that we purchased tend to be
Speaker 1: subsidized by the carrier, and you you know, you agree
Speaker 1: to enter into a contract usually two years, although you
Speaker 1: can get one year contracts as well um with that carrier,
Speaker 1: and as part of that agreement you get those part
Speaker 1: of the purchase prices knocked off of the device, right
Speaker 1: because of usually a significant portion if you were buying
Speaker 1: an iPhone outright to be around six hundred dollars I
Speaker 1: think something like that five hundred dollars in so when
Speaker 1: you enter into this contract, they knock off some of
Speaker 1: that purchase price. Now, if you were to actually examine
Speaker 1: the contract, you'd realize that through the various fees that
Speaker 1: you're paying over the course of the lifetime of the device,
Speaker 1: you're going to pay more than you would on that
Speaker 1: upfront purchase price. Right. But it's easier to do because
Speaker 1: it's spread out over time. It's not all at lens.
Speaker 1: You know, if you see, if I see a phone
Speaker 1: in front of me and it says it's five dollars
Speaker 1: or six hundred dollars, I bulk at that price. And
Speaker 1: I know that there are people around the world who
Speaker 1: that's their reality. They go out and they buy a smartphone.
Speaker 1: That's how much it's gonna cost and then but they're
Speaker 1: not tied to a specific contract. So um, I think
Speaker 1: if you I think, if we do see more devices
Speaker 1: appearing on other carriers, there's the there's at least the
Speaker 1: potential that it moves to a more uh well to
Speaker 1: to the same model that most other countries are following,
Speaker 1: which is that, yeah, it's not tied to a specific carrier,
Speaker 1: but you're going to have to pay for that. You know,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to pay the full price for that
Speaker 1: model as opposed to a subsidized price. Yeah. Yeah, Well
Speaker 1: we saw we saw evidence of that with Google's Nexus
Speaker 1: one phone, which was made by htc UM and they
Speaker 1: initially were planning on offering it UM unlocked, So it
Speaker 1: was a GSM phone that you could use with UM
Speaker 1: a T and T or T mobile and I mean
Speaker 1: you you could actually have it subsidized by T mobile
Speaker 1: UM or you could buy the unlocked version, and there
Speaker 1: was something like what four difference in the price between
Speaker 1: uh T mobile two year contract and getting it that way.
Speaker 1: Of course, uh they never really came out with the
Speaker 1: the they kind of ended the Nexus one program for
Speaker 1: it moved to other carriers that you had been planning
Speaker 1: a Horizon phone which never actually made it um to
Speaker 1: the to the carrier. Um. But yeah, I mean that.
Speaker 1: You know, if you were watching that whole thing, you
Speaker 1: would have seen firsthand the difference that the subsidy makes. UM.
Speaker 1: But I have started seeing rumors that there will be
Speaker 1: an iPhone headed for Sprint UM. And of course the
Speaker 1: rumors have been back and forth with T Mobile simply
Speaker 1: because uh, T Mobile, if I'm not mistaken, is currently
Speaker 1: the largest wireless provider in the world, although the fourth
Speaker 1: largest in the United States. T MO Boll has the
Speaker 1: rights to the iPhone in Europe. UM. And you know,
Speaker 1: there have been pictures of packaging with iPhone. I've actually
Speaker 1: seen people on the blog on blogs post photos of
Speaker 1: iPhone accessories in the T Mobile livery and I'm going, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: they would actually have a reason to have those accessories
Speaker 1: packaged in their colors because they sell the iPhone, just
Speaker 1: not here in the United States, so international travelers would
Speaker 1: definitely want that, yes, yes, And so you know we're
Speaker 1: seeing I've been seeing the rumors for Sprint now that
Speaker 1: the Verizon announcement has come down, So I wonder if uh,
Speaker 1: there's an exclusivity agreement at all, or a semi exclusive
Speaker 1: agreement between those two carriers, or if Apple is going
Speaker 1: to say, you know what, we want as many people
Speaker 1: as we can get, no matter what, we've got the iPhone,
Speaker 1: it's desirable. I'm pretty certain that during their UM press
Speaker 1: conference where Verizon unveiled the fact that they were having
Speaker 1: the iPhone to no surprise at that point, yes, because
Speaker 1: but everyone was essentially saying, today's the day Verizon is
Speaker 1: going to talk about the iPhone. I mean, it was,
Speaker 1: that was all over the news. UM. But when they
Speaker 1: announced it, they said there is no exclusivity agreement. So
Speaker 1: that that means there's at least the potential that the
Speaker 1: the iPhone could move to the other carriers as well. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm sure the other carriers would love to see that.
Speaker 1: It would it would even the playing field across all carriers.
Speaker 1: I read somewhere, and this is take this with a
Speaker 1: grain of salt, actually not verify it, but I read
Speaker 1: somewhere that essentially, during a press call, a T Mobile
Speaker 1: representative essentially said that the company had lost around ten
Speaker 1: percent of its customer base to a T and T
Speaker 1: because the iPhone. So you know, you think, well, now,
Speaker 1: Verizon's got the iPhone too. If you've got people who
Speaker 1: were holding off on moving changing carriers because they had
Speaker 1: heard perhaps they had heard that A T and T
Speaker 1: s UM was not being reliable as far as UH
Speaker 1: being able to hold a call, especially for people who
Speaker 1: are living in San Francisco or New York, where we
Speaker 1: heard that all the time, especially from tech journalists. They
Speaker 1: were saying, I love my iPhone, except I can't you know,
Speaker 1: it keeps dropping calls on me, or I don't get
Speaker 1: my messages. You know, I'll leave the building and then
Speaker 1: five minutes later, I suddenly get a notification that I
Speaker 1: missed like twelve calls during the day. UM, they may
Speaker 1: very well be tempted to go to the Verizon if
Speaker 1: they think that Verizon is going to provide a more
Speaker 1: consistent service. So it'll be interesting to see what Apple does,
Speaker 1: whether or not, you know, it tries to to expand
Speaker 1: even further. My what I'm wondering is, how is the
Speaker 1: iPhone moving to Verizon really going to affect the whole
Speaker 1: smartphone landscape in the United States. UM. Leading up to
Speaker 1: this this announcement, Android was actually gaining and not just
Speaker 1: gaining ground, but but out outperforming Apple in the market. Now,
Speaker 1: you could argue and legitimately, are you that part of
Speaker 1: that is because Androids on a whole bunch of different
Speaker 1: phones on all the different carriers. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: like the iPhone is one line of products. You have
Speaker 1: several generations of it, but it's one line of products,
Speaker 1: whereas Android is an operating system that you can find
Speaker 1: on handsets manufactured from multiple vendors and on multiple carriers.
Speaker 1: So there's no surprise that it would be doing well,
Speaker 1: especially for you know, for the carriers that did not
Speaker 1: have the iPhone, people who were customers of a carrier,
Speaker 1: they wanted a smartphone, they were not willing to switch
Speaker 1: carriers or maybe not able to that. A lot of
Speaker 1: them went with the Android. So do you think that
Speaker 1: the iPhone going to Verizon is going to shake that up?
Speaker 1: Do you think that Apple is going to regain market
Speaker 1: dominance and smartphones or at least leadership in in that market. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that it's certainly going to put Apple and
Speaker 1: Google at a more competitive stance with one another. This
Speaker 1: is not you know, to Google's advance age. Um, not
Speaker 1: because I think Apple will steamroll Google, but Google had
Speaker 1: a decided advantage in being on multiple carriers at one time,
Speaker 1: and now this is going to open the door for
Speaker 1: Apple to regain or gain customers moving from dumb phones
Speaker 1: or from older phones who are upgrading. It will give
Speaker 1: them an opportunity on a much bigger carrier UM to
Speaker 1: to do that. But it's there. This is sort of
Speaker 1: double edged. This is good for Apple because now they've
Speaker 1: got access to all these customers UM, if they can
Speaker 1: open the doors to Sprint and T Mobile, they'll have
Speaker 1: the big four UM and that that's good for them.
Speaker 1: But as some tech journalists have pointed out, this is
Speaker 1: also going to really enable people to see the how
Speaker 1: good the iPhone really is in comparison to its Google counterparts,
Speaker 1: because UM, a lot of the problems that have been
Speaker 1: experienced over the years with say dropped calls UM and
Speaker 1: UH data speeds UM have been by some people attributed
Speaker 1: to a T and T S network, not to the
Speaker 1: device itself. Now that you have essentially the exact same device,
Speaker 1: mostly UM on a different network, you can see you're
Speaker 1: going to see UH people evaluating these two against one another.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna be Android versus iOS anymore. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be Verizon versus a T and T S network, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna see pretty much laid bare whether Apple's iPhone
Speaker 1: is really is uh is really being held back by
Speaker 1: a T and T S network, and a T and
Speaker 1: T may get the opportunity to point their fingers and say, ha,
Speaker 1: we told you so. Yeah, we've been meaning to look
Speaker 1: at that. So UM. Part of it may be alleviated
Speaker 1: by iPhone fans moving from a T and T to
Speaker 1: Verizon and unburdening the network a T and T two.
Speaker 1: So there's that. It's not completely scientific, but um, but
Speaker 1: you're going to see that, and Apple actually has a
Speaker 1: different advantage to UM. The one the one big complaint
Speaker 1: that anti Apple people have, UH that I've heard about
Speaker 1: the iPhone is you know, hey, it's a closed shop.
Speaker 1: You have the app store and that's where you buy
Speaker 1: the apps. You don't have choice there. You don't have
Speaker 1: the choice of manufacturers. Well that's true, but that's one
Speaker 1: of the big complaints people have about Android is it's
Speaker 1: a different experience on different handsets and on different carriers. UM.
Speaker 1: So like the fact that the latest build of Android
Speaker 1: can be found on on very few phones and then
Speaker 1: a larger group of phones have the build behind that,
Speaker 1: and then some more have the build behind that, and
Speaker 1: then and then you start getting it's kind of diamond shaped.
Speaker 1: Right at the very top, you've got some phones that
Speaker 1: have the latest build of Android. Yes. Now the very
Speaker 1: bottom you have some phones that are stuck with the
Speaker 1: oldest or are really old builds of Android, like one
Speaker 1: point six um. And then in the middle you've got
Speaker 1: all the Android phones that are run thing either a
Speaker 1: version or two versions behind. And and that means that
Speaker 1: the experience across Android phones is not consistent. Yep. And
Speaker 1: then and it's true too that if you look at
Speaker 1: at least at my phone carrier, look at the phones,
Speaker 1: the Android phones that are available, you can buy different
Speaker 1: Android phone Like that, you'll see versions of the operating
Speaker 1: system are different on different phones. And if you start
Speaker 1: doing a little research, you'll find that there are no
Speaker 1: plans to upgrade such and such a phone at all.
Speaker 1: So you may be behind and not there's no chance
Speaker 1: to catch up to move up. So you you may
Speaker 1: be paying forty nine dollars for a cool Android phone,
Speaker 1: but there's a cooler Android phone for two dollars more
Speaker 1: than that that will get an upgrade that your phone
Speaker 1: will never get And I don't know that people understand
Speaker 1: that necessarily. Some sure lots of them do. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't do a little research, you may find
Speaker 1: that you're stuck in an older version of the operating system.
Speaker 1: And of course that's true for for the iPhone as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I'm sure, uh, if I don't say this,
Speaker 1: people will write in and tell us this. Yes. Of course,
Speaker 1: if you have, you know, an iPhone from a couple
Speaker 1: of generations ago, there's not a chance that you're going
Speaker 1: to get upgraded to the latest iOS. You know, and
Speaker 1: yeah they have they abandoned people too, but the experience
Speaker 1: may differ. If you buy the latest iPhone from a carrier,
Speaker 1: you're likely to get the newest experience, the most recent
Speaker 1: operating system. You're probably good for a couple upgrades, at
Speaker 1: least until the next version of the iPhone comes out,
Speaker 1: and then probably still for another couple of updates until
Speaker 1: What really we get to is that the upbring system
Speaker 1: tends to outstrip the capabilities of the hardware. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's true, and so it's not necessarily that the carriers
Speaker 1: or or the Upbring system designers are being malicious. Sometimes
Speaker 1: sometimes it's just the fact that your device can't handle
Speaker 1: the next level of the operations. Now in some cases
Speaker 1: it's I don't know what the reasoning is. Well, they
Speaker 1: of course they want to outdo the competition. We we
Speaker 1: talk about competition all the time, and how this is.
Speaker 1: This is great that we have Android and the new
Speaker 1: Windows phone software and Blackberries uh, you know, doing some
Speaker 1: serious been doing some serious upgrades and has their application store.
Speaker 1: So these are all working against one another and they're
Speaker 1: they're forcing each other to innovate, and that's cool. But
Speaker 1: as they innovate the operating system on each of the
Speaker 1: their their services, eventually your hardware is going to get
Speaker 1: left behind because to run these fancy new applications, well
Speaker 1: you know you're going to have to upgrade your hardware. Yes,
Speaker 1: that that doesn't work to the detriment of the carrier
Speaker 1: or the the phone manufacturer, except for you know, network capacity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that might actually be another play into another reason why
Speaker 1: some carriers don't allow certain OS upgrades to hit certain
Speaker 1: Android phones because it lets them market newer phones over
Speaker 1: the older phones. Like if you keep upgrading, if you
Speaker 1: keep allowing these updates to hit the older Android phone owns.
Speaker 1: Assuming that the older Android phones are capable of running
Speaker 1: the OS UH, then you give that person less reason
Speaker 1: to upgrade their phone, right because their old phone can
Speaker 1: keep up with the new Earth that phones. So there's
Speaker 1: always this conspiracy theory element where you're thinking, maybe the
Speaker 1: carrier is whold withholding Android updates so that it can
Speaker 1: market the newest Android phones and sell those and then
Speaker 1: just keep you on a continual UH cycle of upgrading
Speaker 1: your phone every x number of months. In a In
Speaker 1: a related note, the Verizon New every two program is
Speaker 1: going away. They announced that right about the time. I
Speaker 1: don't think it was on the same day, but it
Speaker 1: was right about the time I saw it. It was
Speaker 1: one of those headlines that was a very small headline
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the page. But they used to
Speaker 1: have this deal where after two years you would get
Speaker 1: a I think a hundred dollar subsidy or something in
Speaker 1: addition to whatever the discount was for renewing your contract.
Speaker 1: And they're doing away with that. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's necessary the iPhone for related but I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised if that didn't factor into the decision to
Speaker 1: end the program. Um In fact, I think the article
Speaker 1: I read said, you know, they've probably been considering this
Speaker 1: for quite some time, but this certainly isn't coined to
Speaker 1: encourage them to continue in the pants. Yes, because there
Speaker 1: they will sell Verizon will sell a lot of iPhones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let me, We've been going on for about all over
Speaker 1: half an hour. Yeah, we should probably still wrap this
Speaker 1: up a bit. But because in order to save some
Speaker 1: face after my disastrously embarrassing UH prediction went so wrong
Speaker 1: less than two weeks into the new year, allow me
Speaker 1: to make a new prediction, which is that, at least
Speaker 1: in the short term, with the iPhone coming to Verizon,
Speaker 1: Apple will regain leadership in the smartphone market in the
Speaker 1: United States. Yeah, I see. I'm not willing to say that.
Speaker 1: I'm willing to say I'm willing to say that enough
Speaker 1: people are going to either move to the Ice own
Speaker 1: from a dumb phone or switch from there whatever smartphone
Speaker 1: they're using on, especially Verizon customers, Verizon customers who have
Speaker 1: always wanted to have an iPhone, but then they felt
Speaker 1: like they settled for a different smartphone. Now, when I
Speaker 1: say that, that's not my own personal opinion. I'm an
Speaker 1: Android owner and I love my Android phone. But but
Speaker 1: for some people, some people got an Android phone not
Speaker 1: because they really wanted an Android phone, they wanted a
Speaker 1: smartphone and they could not get the iPhone. Right, So
Speaker 1: those people are going to switch. The people with the
Speaker 1: dumb phones who have always wanted a smartphone, now they're
Speaker 1: going to be like, oh awesome, I can have an iPhone.
Speaker 1: Now they're going to switch. You're gonna have new customers
Speaker 1: switching as well. Now some of them are going to
Speaker 1: be a T and T to Verizon. So in reality,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna have any gain there. It's just gonna
Speaker 1: be a lateral move. But I think that uh androids
Speaker 1: leadership was not overwhelming like they were not. They were
Speaker 1: not by far outstripping Apple in the smartphone market. So
Speaker 1: I think Apple is going to regain leadership in that
Speaker 1: space and maybe for a year. It might be a
Speaker 1: year before we see how that how that pans out
Speaker 1: for the long term, and maybe that they regain leadership
Speaker 1: and they never let go. But we'll have to see.
Speaker 1: But that's my new prediction. Okay, all right, any of
Speaker 1: you guys have predictions about the Rize iPhone, Like I
Speaker 1: predict I will go in buy one you can let
Speaker 1: us know. You can let us know on Twitter or
Speaker 1: Facebook are handled there is tech Stuff hs W, or
Speaker 1: you can shoot us an email. That email address is
Speaker 1: tech stuff at how stuff works dot com and chrism
Speaker 1: I will taught to you again, maybe even on an
Speaker 1: iPhone really soon. For moral on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. So
Speaker 1: learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon
Speaker 1: in the upper right corner of our homepage. The how
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