AppleInsider Staff
Speaking at the NAB conference on Wednesday, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam claims he was the one who suggested adding 4G LTE capabilities to the iPhone some time after the iPhone 4 was released.
As reported by Fierce Wireless (via The Next Web), the Verizon chief said he pitched the protocol to Jobs, who apparently liked the idea of high-speed access for the iPhone.
"I was really trying to sell him and he sat there without any reaction. Finally, he said, ‘Enough. You had me at 10 Mbps. I know you can stream video at 10 Mbps.’ And Apple’s next phone was LTE," McAdams said.
The timeline is somewhat suspect in the executive's recounting of the tale, as Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011, one day after the iPhone 4S was unveiled. McAdams is likely referring to the iPhone 5, however, as the 4S offered only HSPA+ connectivity.
At the time, U.S. wireless technology was moving toward 4G, with Verizon banking on long-term evolution, or LTE, as the telecom built out its advanced network. Subsequently, all major carriers now leverage the wireless standard to provide fast data transmissions to Apple's latest products like the iPhone 5 and current iPad lineup.
It was just reported today that AT&T would be extending its LTE coverage to 79 new markets, with the rollout scheduled to complete this summer. T-Mobile, the last of the "Big Four" U.S. telecoms to become an Apple partner carrier, has also jumped on board, activating its own 4G LTE network in March ahead of the company's iPhone launch this Friday.
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39 Comments
I emailed Tim cook to put 802.11ac in the iPhone. When it eventually gets added, remember it was my idea¡
So McAdams isn't exactly the brightest bulb in the bunch, hmm? Can think he honestly thinks he convinced Jobs to add LTE unless he is amongst the very dimmest of people walking the earth.
He also convinced Cisco to go with gigabit ethernet, back in the day.
Well, thank God for Verizon's CEO then. Clearly would never have gotten LTE into an iPhone if it wasn't for him, and we'd be stuck on HSPA+ forever. Only Verizon's CEO could have come up with the brilliant idea of adding LTE to a phone, a capability that would have really required some out of the box thinking, and thank our lucky stars he was around to tell Jobs' whats up.
The fact that this douche actually believes, or trying to get believe to believe, that he had any influence on iPhone development blows my mind.
Since he's dead and we can make claims, I sent Steve an email with the idea for adding the "Dictionary" feature to the copy/paste bar in iOS. (This is actually real; whether or not he even saw my email is a different story lol)