The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sprint has landed a huge $20 billion deal with Apple to purchase roughly 30 million iPhone units over the next four years.

Mr. Hesse told the board the carrier would have to agree to purchase at least 30.5 million iPhones over the next four years—a commitment of $20 billion at current rates—whether or not it could find people to buy them, according to people familiar with the matter. In order to keep the price people pay for the phone low and competitive with rivals, Sprint would be subsidizing the cost of each phone to the tune of about $500, which would take a long time to recoup even at the high monthly fees iPhone users pay.

Sprint is calling this an "all-in" gamble as they're essentially betting the farm on the iPhone to keep them competitive with Verizon and AT&T. But this seems to us like a very high risk gamble for Sprint to take.

BGR also claims they have word from an "incredibly solid source" that Sprint has landed an exclusive deal on the iPhone 5 with support for 4G WiMax out of the gate, with AT&T and Verizon only getting the device later next year.

I have been told that Sprint will be getting the iPhone 5 — yes the real iPhone 5, not the iPhone 4S — as an exclusive. And it will be a WiMAX device. AT&T and Verizon would launch the iPhone 4S and get the iPhone 5 sometime in the first quarter of next year as an LTE device. Globally, the iPhone 5 might be available as a 4G HSPA+ device.

Wouldn't it be far more likely, however, for Sprint to get a budget iPhone 4 and offer it at a far cheaper contract than AT&T or Verizon?

Source: WSJ, BGR

Credit Suisse Research analyst Jonathan Chaplin thinks we can expect Apple's iPhone to remain exclusive to AT&T for an additional 12-18 months, long past some people's expectations (and recent rumors). Not only will it remain exclusive, Chaplin says, but the delay will have a major negative impact on Verizon, causing him to lower his rating on Big Red from "Outperform" to "Neutral" and cut his share price target from $32 to $30.

"Our analysis suggests that Apple will eventually sell the device at all carriers; however, there is a much greater probability that AT&T keeps exclusivity for another 12-18 months than investors realize," Chaplin wrote. "We think this has profound impacts for Apple, the carriers and the other handset OEMs."

Credit Suisse is 75% certain that AT&T will keep their stranglehold on iPhone for the rest of this calendar year.

"We conclude there is only a 50% probability that it (exclusivity) ends in 2010," Chaplin wrote. "Next, we try to determine whether AT&T bids for another year of exclusivity if exclusivity does end in 2010. We conclude they would and they can afford to compensate Apple such that Apple would be economically indifferent. Our approach yields a 25% probability for this outcome. Taken together, we see a 75% probability that AT&T keeps exclusivity for another year."

Those of us here at TiPb have often wondered "analyst" predictions were any more reliable than magic 8-ball results, so we will ask you, our readers -- will we ever see an iPhone on Verizon or is Steve out to bury them for rejecting the iPhone the first time around? Sound off in the comments!

[Via Apple Insider]

There's been some chatter here, and in the blogsphere in general, that the iPhone 3G isn't a compelling enough upgrade for current iPhone users. 3G speed is nice, but not everyone has it in their area. GPS rocks, but Google cell and Skyhook WiFi triangulation is good enough for a lot of location services. And the flush headset jack? Already bought an adapter. So aside from some internals, like rejiggered sensor arrays, better speaker quality, and more radio-friendly plastic back, some just don't feel like the iPhone 3G brought enough new stuff!

But what if it had? What if it had brought the mother of all firmware updates?

Steve Jobs takes back the stage at WWDC 2008, thanks Scott Forstall and everyone, says how wonderful the SDK looks, goes over all the new features coming to the platform with 2.0, and then reaches into his pocket and says: "But there's one more thing..." And pulls out something just a little sleeker and blacker backed. "All those 2.0 features, all the enterprise and SDK goodness..." He holds it up and the light flashes against its more tapered sliver bezel. "Are coming EXCLUSIVELY to the new iPhone 3G!"

Boom.

Crazy? Sure. It probably would have broken the internet in half and set off a mountain of protests that would have made the $200 price drop nonsense seem like a molehill. Arguments and counter-arguments would have raged, Apple fanboys would have been split, Apple-haters would have pounced...

But it would have made the iPhone 3G a much more compelling upgrade, wouldn't it?

Sure, maybe the iPhone 3G we got was somewhere between tweak and evolution on the typical Apple product roadmap, but --

"iPhone 2.0, Available Exclusively on 3G..."

-- Would anyone seriously have preferred that?