Rumor: Hypothetical hybrid GSM-CDMA iPhone for Verizon nowhere near production

Don't get your hopes up. No iphone on verizion until the roll out next gen lte tech. Cdma is going to be gone in the US inside of 10 years.

these chips have been made. the new upcoming xpPhone (xpphone.com) has a chip for all mobile standards (gsm, cdma, td...from there website) so this could be made, but then again with all the iphone/att bashing big red has been doing lately i dont see why apple would want to make verizon even richer

You say that "it would be ideal for Apple to have one model of iPhone that would work on nearly all wireless providers in the world" but they already do with the iPhone 3G/3GS. Why can't shitty, backwards carriers like Verizon just shut up and get with the rest of the world.

Besides, there are other carriers besides AT&T, Sprint and Verizon in the US. What's wrong with T-Mobile? If Apple just made a few modifications to its chip to allow the 3G bands that T-Mobile use to work with the iPhone then you'd be laughing.

CDMA is not dead. It's GSM that's dead and why these multi-mode chips work. People are confusing the air interface level with the underlying technology. All 3G and 4G technologies are based on CDMA, even HSPA and LTE. There's a reason why HSPA underlying technology is called WCDMA and not WGSM. GSM is based on an inferior technology known as TDMA, which only exists as a legacy technology now. All flavors of 3G use CDMA, even the European ones. 4G uses a combination of CDMA and OFDM (multi-path signals being used to enhance communications rather than degrading them).

The differences between LTE or Wimax or UMB are in the interface level. Think of it this way. Underneath the MacOS is the underlying Unix core. Linux also has a Unix core. Each has a different API applications can write to and a different GUI but underneath it all is still Unix. The same applies to these 3G and 4G wireless technologies. They're all CDMA and OFDM underneath with a different air interface.

GSM is dead. Nobody is switching to GSM. LTE is not GSM.

After all the anti-iPhone ads from Verizon with the Droid, I doubt Apple would go out of its way to make a phone for Verizon. Steve Jobs tends to hold a grudge. Expect to see T-mobile iPhones next year and then the other carriers once they switch to GSM.

Seeing how you have the Blackberry World device I believe which takes a SIM but is primarily CDMA, there is a way to make this work.

However its not going to happen overnight. I still say that once it does happen, I'll leave AT&T and go over too Verizon, take the 30 day trial or 14 day trial and if everything goes well I'll port over.

For me the 3G map means nothing because with the iPhone in my area, even if its poor service AT&T blames Apple, and the Apple genius blames AT&T.

NOTE: Android Development is kicking into pretty fast, so it's going to be very very interesting to see how that goes also.

the Sprint touch pro2 can work on US GSM network... after some unlocking...

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Don't these chips already exist? Verizon (Well, HTC) uses them in the Touch Pro2, which is thinner than its predecessor. I don't see why it would take over a year to put one in the iPhone

Qualcomm just announced a hybrid chip that covers the LTE up to 21 Mbits/sec and CDMA/EVDO and prior UMTS to GSM and I think TDMA as well. The article over at www.electronista.com possible.verizon.iphone.candidates for the scoop. The availability will be late though and I'd bet on the CDMA / Verizon issue iPhone in 2010 July-ish and then an LTE version instead of the real really real world phone hybrid iPhone in 2011, because the older networks will be ... well ... older networks as LTE replces them on both sides of the fence.