Well, wasnt going to post this because it's another one of those "I know someone who knows something" type of deal, but since this article came out i'm starting to beleive that what i heard is the real deal.
one of my clients (i'm an IT Consultant) owns a Verizon Retail store and is close friends with an Verizon Internal IT Tech who comes to his store to setup new displays, etc. When i was there during the final days of CTIA i was trying to poke and prod him about the Incredible, to which he genuinely knew nothing about, but he did offer up some little tidbit, prefacing by saying "I'm not supposed to say anything, but whatever, i dont care"
He said that his Verizon IT Guy had a phone that was registered on the 4G network, because certain testers had access to these 4G Towers. He showed him the browsing on his phone in direct comparison to the Droid on 3G and it was more than twice as fast...
I dont know if that rules out his credibility for the next tidbit, as i thought 4G wasnt even being rolled out until later on. But it sounds like there are towers up or the signal is flowin and only certain people have access..or he had a 4G demo phone...as i assume it's all new tech (new radio, frequency, etc). Anyways, I didnt question him on that because he had more to tell me..
which is..
that his Verizon IT guy told him the iPhone IS coming to Verizon and that he had seen renderings of the new iPhone. He was VERY specific in the detailing of the phone by saying it would be thinner than the existing one, and that it would be shorter but with the same screen size. THis would make basically cut off the bottom and top bits of the phone and make the phone an all touch phone or have some other "home" button somewhere else (or just smaller he wasnt sure) He said it was pretty damn slick looking.
He also said they're trying to get it out before Christmas and to use it as their launch phone for 4G. This is where it all started to make sense...
Can you imagine a 4G iPhone coming to Verizon before Christmas? It's like the ultimate motherload for a phone/wireless company. What better way to launch a phone/service? IT's perfect. It's Genius, and it's everything i would expect a Verizon/Apple to do.
I started looking up iPhone 4G Verizon images and started to find mockups and concept renderingsof a new iPhone and found something similar to what was described to him/me...
http://www.dasreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/6a00d8341bfa6953ef011168576cdb970c-500wi.jpg
I'm sure you've seen this. But all this coming together just seems to make perfect sense. And my guy really wasnt nervous about telling me (for one he doesnt know i belong to a forum that likes to spread speculation) but he really beleived in what he was told..that was clear...and that the Verizon IT Guy was really nervous about leaking info to him....for obvious reasons.
ANwyays, just thought i'd share some speculation..it's the best i got with my contact....
I for one will buy the incredible when it comes out and if/when the iPhone comes out for Verizon... well... i'll reassess...