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Comment by kloncks | Hacker News Reader

Verizon working with Apple: Does this just validate all those rumors of an iPhone next month on Verizon?

I think it's safe to assume that. It shows that Apple and Verizon don't have as terrible a blood feud as some had thought. In fact, the offer looks somewhat... desperate. It's blatantly anti-consumer (lug around a MiFi and pay for the privilege!) in comparison to the AT&T offering. I wonder if it's not part of some contractual agreement from Apple: "Alright, we'll give you the iPhone, but we want iPads in Verizon stores this holiday season, and [we don't have the CDMA chips ready yet/don't want to announce we have CDMA chips yet]. What are you going to do?"

It's hardly anti-consumer. For the price of a 3G iPad, you get an equivalent Wi-Fi only iPad and a MiFi that all your other devices can use. I would have bought this in a heartbeat over my 3G if it had been available in April.

It's hard to sell a portability argument when you are tied to a dongle, even if it is small. That's a workaround for the network, not the consumer.

Was this option not available? It seems like the only convenience is the bundling here, or were Mifis never without contract before?

I'm pretty sure Verizon's MiFi is contract only (and $60 for 5GB data). Virgin's just recently became unlimited, but I /think/ it's always been contract-free, it just used to be 5GB.

Virgin's got a public awareness problem (at least among the people I know), however, so for most people I bet the only known options were from Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, etc.

IIRC you could buy a no-contract MiFi but it was much more expensive.

It's especially interesting as we're now hearing rumors of AT&T's relationship with Apple souring a bit.

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