iPhone again rumored on Verizon, new screen resolution, second camera


The iPad-ocalypse this week won't put the mute on iPhone rumors. The Wall Street Journal late Monday piped up with some rumors, followed by a curious response from Daring Fireball.

The Verizon rumor is now among the permanent Apple rumors. Meaning, it will blindly persist until coming true. Still, the Journal is reporting that Apple may start producing Verizon-compatible CDMA phones in September. ( New iPhone Could End AT&T's U.S. Monopoly)The article states that Apple may be changing its tune on CDMA as Verizon's roll-out to 4G/LTE may be taking longer than it thought.

The only official indication Apple has made on the U.S. iPhone carrier situation is to support AT&T and its ongoing upgrades.

While officially unknown, it's widely thought Apple's current exclusivity with AT&T runs until the end of the year. A September date may make sense with that conventional intel. It gives time to ramp up production, although the WSJ reports Apple could begin sales immediately as production begins. Another possible scenario could involve Apple working out a deal with AT&T to end exclusivity early, whenever that actually is, in trade for improved iPhone handset pricing.

In other iPhone news, Gruber over at Daring Fireball (WSJ's Lame Entry in the iPhone Rumors Game)fires back on the WSJ rumors calling it "lame" for lack of new iPhone details. While the WSJ piece only said a new iPhone is coming out summer, which is a given with Jobs himself talking about the "A+" upgrade with employees, the article is really about the Verizon situation and not the new iPhone. Cryptically Gruber talks about an updated CPU the same or similar to the iPad's new A4 processor, which seems very likely. Also noted was a front-facing camera, which has been rumbled for a while, and could provide video conferencing/calling. Lately noted was a new higher resolution display. A 960x640 doubled-resolution for the iPhone could greatly improve video quality of HD content.