A recent report out of TechCrunch cites “a developer of some of the most popular apps on the iOS platform ” that claims the next iPhone will be a dual-mode world phone, which means it’ll be able to connect to both GSM (AT&T, T-Mobile) and CDMA (Sprint, Verizon) networks.
This would certainly make sense, as it would eliminate the need for Apple to manufacture two separate handsets.
According to the source, who wished to remain anonymous (shocking!), one of his or her applications was registered on a new Apple device using multiple MNC/MCC codes. For those that don’t know, MNC stands for Mobile Network Codes, and MCC stands for Mobile Country Codes.
These codes can be used to identify different mobile carriers, and in this case, both Verizon and AT&T codes were registered on a single device.
This isn’t all that surprising, considering that the Qualcomm chips powering the Verizon-branded iPhone 4 are technically capable of connecting to both GSM and CDMA networks. In fact, it seems more logical for Apple to create one single phone compatible with both network types, than to continue producing two different handsets.
One interesting thing that TechCrunch highlighted is the fact that, if this rumor pans out, it almost certainly rules out the possibility that the iPhone 5 will be LTE-compatible. Though, at this point, it didn’t seem like the iPhone 5 was heading in that direction anyway.
It’s definitely an intriguing trade-off though. Would you rather have 4G LTE speeds, or be able to roam networks (and different countries) without worrying about connectivity? Weigh in below in the comments section
