If your reading preferences lean towards dish and intrigue, you might want to pay attention to what Wired magazine has to offer in their August issue.
Wired has gone behind the scenes of the tumultuous relationship between AT&T and Apple and in doing so, sheds some light on the nagging question of why one of the best smartphone handsets in the world remains on the network that so many Americans love to hate.
The article suggests that Steve Jobs, frustrated with the AT&T's performance, suggested upwards of a half dozen times that Apple should consider flipping the iPhone over to a different American network. His suggestion however, according to Wired, was stymied:
"Apple also heavily considered switching to Verizon numerous times. Around the end of 2007, at Jobs' behest, Apple engineers (including Scott Forstall) visited the headquarters of Qualcomm - the primary supplier of the chips in Verizon's phones. It concluded that switching to Verizon would be too complicated and expensive because the chips were different sizes and would necessitate rebuilding the iPhone from scratch. Apple also wasn't convinced that Verizon's network would fare much better and let's not forget the nasty lawsuit that voiding its exclusive pact with AT&T would invite."
Add to all of this the fact that Wired offers up the possibility that hybrid chip capable of operating both on Apple's existing carrier partner's networks as well as on Verizon's CDMA2000 hardware could be in the cards, and you've got the makings for some excellent summer reading. Check out the article in the magazine out on newstands, or very soon on your iPad.
