> I think Verizon did the right thing by turning down Apple at first. It would be helpful to understand what actually went down... Back in 2006, Apple wanted

> I think Verizon did the right thing by turning down Apple at first. It would be helpful to understand what actually went down... Back in 2006, Apple wanted a new way of selling handsets. Apple did not want to do subsidized, they wanted to supply the handsets to the carriers, charge a fair price to the purchaser, then share in the revenue (that was received by the carrier). VZW declined that deal. AT&T (which at the time was still Cingular) liked the possibilities, liked the prototypes, and decided to buy in. The 'revenue sharing' deal ended up being a bad thing for Apple, because a very large number of original iPhone handsets sold (perhaps as many as 30%) were never activated on AT&T. A few were jailbroken/unlocked and used on T-Mobile, but large number of them ended up on the far side of the Pacific (in various countries). So Apple had to go back to AT&T and renegotiate a more conventional deal. Now that the deal is similar to what VZW normally has (and exclusivity is about to end), we will (hopefully) see some competition in the US iPhone market.