Breaking: Verizon Holding Event Jan 11, IPhone On The Way?

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Cellular’s worst-kept secret may finally be coming out of the closet: Verizon has announced a press event in New York City for Tuesday, 1/11 at 11 AM EST. The topic? It’s under wraps, but it’s widely expected to be the long-awaited Verizon iPhone.

The carrier has already issued a ton of news and device debuts at CES, which leaves one to wonder — if this isn’t about the ViPhone, what else could it possibly be? I mean, sure, there’s an outside chance that this has nothing to do with any sort of iDevice.

But the PR team at Big Red couldn’t be that dumb, could they? After all the hype and anticipation, with eyes focused on this timeframe, an announcement of any other sort would surely upset a ton of people and diminish any other piece of news they might have going.

In the past, Verizon has been known to occasionally include teasers in their press invitations, but this one holds no inkling. Not a word or graphic about the spotlight topic or whether a super special guest speaker — like say, one Mr. Steven Jobs — will be on hand. (Then again, you wouldn’t really expect it to, would you? Talk about a monumentally epic tip-off.) No, they’re understandably keeping this one close to the vest.

Earlier today, BGR cited an anonymous source stating that Apple employee vacations are banned from February 3–6, while numerous pundits have been weighing in for months, throwing their predictions behind an early Q1 announcement/debut of the mythical, but hopefully soon-to-be-real Verizon iPhone.

So at long last, could this really be the day? Only time will tell, but thankfully, there won’t be much longer to wait.

ADDITION1: Meanwhile, inside the carrier, it appears they’ve mandated face-to-face training for some sort of “iconic pre-order” scheduled for January 25 to February 4. There are some theories that this is for the Thunderbolt Android device, but then why would Big Red blackout the month of February? That’s not their usual M.O.

Again, all this is speculation until official announcements are made, but the circumstantial evidence seems to be mounting.

ADDITION2: iSmashphone listed out some more circumstantial evidence that will either utterly convince you that this press event is for the ViPhone, or at least give you an entertaining read. It notes that MG Siegler, well-known resident Apple fanboy at TechCrunch, got a specific, non-transerable media invitation to the event. Kind of odd, considering Verizon’s never directly invited him to any of their press conferences before.

Meanwhile there’s Gizmodo, which claims to have a terrific relationship with Verizon, but infamously not with Apple (remember that iffy little thing with the iPhone 4 prototype? Yeah, Apple holds grudges). Well, Gizmodo was totally snubbed for this event. They’re currently trying to get a hold of Verizon.