Leaked Document Shows Verizon’s Psi Ops Anti-iPhone Propaganda

Oh, deary deary me… Verizon’s tactics to combat the JesusPhone 3G now include briefing its employees about the iPhone’s failings, so they can answer customer questions about why it doesn’t carry the device. There are four big “myths” about the cellphone apparently, ranging from “twice as fast” to “iPhone data plan covers all data,” there’s even a dig about the lack of audible turn-by-turn GPS navigation. Hasn’t Verizon worked out that that’s just an app, and is a facility that may yet be added in the future?

My fave “mythbusting” point has to be that the iPhone 3G “will be twice as fast only where AT&T has 3G coverage!” No shit… like, you can only run trains on train tracks? OK, so it’s really a dig at AT&T’s 3G coverage, but you get my point.

This has apparently been distributed within Verizon, and though there’s the possibility that it’s not quite legit, it certainly seems the real deal to me. What do you think, chaps?

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At last, the iPhone comes to Vermont

After a fourteen-month wait, the iPhone is finally coming to Vermont.

“But isn’t Vermont a part of the US?” you ask. Well yes, but AT&T — the iPhone’s exclusive carrier in the US — has no wireless coverage in the Green Mountain State, so the iPhone has never officially been made available. Some enterprising Vermonters have set up blogs and even gone underground with their jailbroken iPhones, but that’s all about to change.

Earlier this week, Vermont’s WCAX TV reported that area providers Verizon and Unicel have merged, and AT&T will be awarded overlapping service areas to prevent a wireless monopoly in Vermont.

The wait is almost over, Vermonters! Now you can enjoy standing in long lines like the rest of us.
Thanks, B. Marriner! [wcax]

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Verizon CEO hates on Steve Jobs, doesn’t see iPhone as a mass-market handset

If you’ve been scouring the dictionary for sour grapes, chances are you’ll find Ivan Seidenberg’s picture. Verizon Communications’ chairman and chief executive recently sat down for an interview with Financial Times, and while he spent the vast majority of his time boasting of just how amazing Verizon is, he did stop to remark about Cupertino ever so briefly. Granted, he did start off by admitting that Apple was a “great company,” but that didn’t stop him from pillorying the iPhone as well as Dear Leader himself. He actually accused the interviewer of “declaring [Apple] a winner before it had earned it on the field,” suggesting that the iPhone wouldn’t become a mass-market handset simply because the next iteration will be subsidized. He also stated that “Mr. Jobs had no monopoly on innovation,” and took the conversation even further off track by blurting that “Steve Jobs eventually will get old.” At least Keystone knows where to find its next bitter beer face, right?

[Via The Inquirer, image courtesy of Pace, thanks Frank]

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Rhapsody ditches (some) DRM, selling MP3s with Verizon and Yahoo

Rhapsody, the digital love-child of Real Networks and MTV, is best known for its DRM’d subscription music service. As such, the globe’s population of sheep-white-earbudded, sidewalk zombies have been completely off limits to its charms. Until today. While its DRM’d subscription deals remain in place, Rhapsody is now offering unprotected MP3 downloads via its Rhapsody MP3 store and via partners including Verizon’s VCAST over-the-air service and Yahoo. We’re talking 5 million DRM-free tracks (generally priced at $0.99 per song, $9.99 per album) from Indies and the four majors. Uniquely, all tracks can be previewed in full before downloading. Rhapsody VP, Neil Smith said, “We’re no longer competing with the iPod, we’re embracing it.” Perhaps, but Rhapsody’s planned $50 million marketing assault on iTunes with the help of MTV’s TV networks doesn’t exactly make them best of friends. We’re not DRM-free across the industry yet (in fact, far from it), but things are certainly moving in that direction.

Update: Signup now with the Rhapsody MP3 store and get a $10 credit which can be applied to your first album.

[Via Reuters]

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News flash: Steve Jobs is aging

In an interview with Financial Times [registration required], Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg shared his company’s answer to the iPhone’s popularity

“…As handsets become banking tools and games controllers, he argues, mobile operators can up-end other companies’ business models. ‘It’s very cool. And Steve Jobs will eventually get old … I like our chances.’”

Seidenberg, who is nine years Jobs’ senior, has decided to wait for his rival to “age out” of his position. This reminds me of the skinny 7th grader who laments, “Someday my bully will notice girls and lose interest in stealing my lunch money.”

Or, perhaps by “old” he meant “out-of-favor” as Daring Fireball suggests. Like Jelly Shoes and Jarts, the appeal of Apple with Jobs at the wheel will eventually fade. All Verizon must do is ride out the trend, like a lobster boat in a Nor’easter.

Forget innovation and hard work. The sit-and-wait method is a good one, too. It worked for Estragon and Vladimir.

[Via Macuser and Cameron I/O]

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