Those Verizon Wireless users pining for an iPhone just might be waiting a whole lot longer. According to court documents uncovered this week by Engadget.com, Apple and AT&T entered into a five-year exclusive agreement on iPhone service in 2007. But the details of that agreement -- and whether it remains valid -- are still unclear.
The five-year deal had been reported upon by USA Today before the launch of the first iPhone in 2007, but the report was never confirmed. But Engadget discovered court documents from an ongoing, but not very-well-known class-action lawsuit filed against Apple in 2008. In those documents Apple confirms that it had, in fact entered into a five-year agreement with AT&T to provide exclusive service for the iPhone.
But, as Engadget points out, those documents are from 2008. (The lawsuit is still ongoing, but many of the documents filed since 2009 have been sealed.) The terms of the agreement between Apple and AT&T could have changed since then, especially since the two companies recently negotiated an agreement for AT&T to offer data service for Apple's iPad tablet.
Does that mean that AT&T's iPhone exclusivity still lasts until 2012, or does it end sooner? Or did the two companies agree to extend it even longer? We don't know the details, but it seems more and more likely that we won't be seeing an iPhone from Verizon anytime soon.
Photo copyright Apple
Comments