Apple outlines differences between CDMA and GSM phones

Call retention and ask for unlimited. Verizon is only going to be offering that for a short time. AT&T is offering it again if you ask. Also while you are at it AT&T now has unlimited voice when you call any mobile phone. On any network. Got mine set up the other day. Only thing required is unlimited texting.

As a new Verizon iPhone customer who spent 3.7 years as a hold out.. The first benefit is that it's not on AT&T. All my dealings with AT&T have been negative. From Terrible customer support, ridiculous international rates, high prices w/o better service. When I was selling AT&T phones, there was the stupidity of forcing customers into a $20 unlimited texting plan, just because the only phone we had that didn't have a touch screen, or QWERTY keyboard sucked (and there was only 1 choice), and the removal of the unlimited data or 5GB of data option. OH and on top of all that, AT&T wants me to pay a deposit of... get this.. $700 just to get a phone i could buy flat out for $600, but can't use because I'd still have to get the contract. Also can't unlock the iPhone.. yadda yadda yadda...

Yeah I can't do data while on a call.. and rudely ignore the person I'm talking to because I'm poking at the internet.. and I can't do 2 calls (Which I will admit is a useful feature) But.. to not have to deal with AT&T, it's worth it.

@Duscrum. You have a deposit cause you have bad credit. $700 means you're pretty bad. Also, the high international roaming?? Good luck on Verizon. Their rates are the same except the Verizon iPhone is only data capable in 20 countries. You won't be able to roam at all. I've always avoided roaming by switching the phone OFF. I guess the Verizon iPhone will do that for you since it will have no signal.

There was a post up a few days ago about the conferencing and how it works. If there are CDMA phones that support 5 way conferences, I'd love to see an example.

I'm guessing you may have seen phones where it was set up to use a conferencing service, where, as far as the radio in the phone was concerned, it was only on 1 or 2 calls, while something upstream (like a conference line service) mixed the audio and moderated a conference that way.

And as for the calling features like setting up forwarding and stuff, this looks completely accurate to me as a former Verizon user and current (AT&T) iPhone user. Almost every GSM phone I've ever used had the ability for the phone to query settings like that and let you change them like the iPhone. While CDMA phones can't query the settings at all, and you can only blindly access them by dialing the feature codes.

GSM phones can also dial feature codes to do it, by the way--but usually, the phone "notices" what you are doing, and will show you a confirmation, instead of just placing a "call" and hearing a message from the carrier.

P.S.: Nick, i'm not calling you a liar by any means. i'm more curious to see how whatever you're describing works after what we read the other day on the reason why it can't do it. Perhaps that information from the other day was incorrect.

I think this goes a long way toward explaining the disappointing Verizon iPhone sale numbers. The pent-up demand for iPhones among Verizon subscribers and the number of consumers who are prepared to jettison their AT&T contracts to switch to Verizon have been overestimated. Most of my family, friends and colleagues use iPhones on AT&T, and I don't know of a single one who's switching. I'm sure Verizon will get a respectable number of iPhone subscribers, and there is a chance a lot of people are waiting to see what happens in the summer, but it doesn't look as though it's going to be the tsunami some folks expected.