Yep. AT&T (really Cingular) was desperate and needed a hit product to grow. They made a deal with the devil (from their perspective) to give up control in hopes

Yep. AT&T (really Cingular) was desperate and needed a hit product to grow. They made a deal with the devil (from their perspective) to give up control in hopes of getting sales & users. The successful carriers like Verizon told Apple no due to Apple’s demands. If they knew how big it would be they may have agreed but that was unknowable. Still it was the end of the absolute lockdown carriers had on smartphone software.