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T-Mobile USA 'Not Going to Get the iPhone 5 This Year'

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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tmobile_brodman_iphone_5.jpg



TmoNews reports that it has received an image of an internal news posting from T-Mobile USA sharing word from Chief Marketing Officer Cole Brodman that the carrier will not be offering the iPhone 5 this year. Brodman's comment apparently came as part of a September 15th company town hall meeting.
"Our business is working very hard to improve performance over the last couple of years and we've had some great success," said Brodman. New products and value plans are fueling customer response, he added, and Brodman expects the excitement to continue into the holiday season as T-Mobile introduces two new smartphones. Note: "We are not going to get the iPhone 5 this year," Brodman said.
Click to expand...
Brodman's comment does not eliminate the possibility of T-Mobile offering the iPhone 5 at some point in the future, but it seems that the carrier will not be a launch partner for the device.

Several mainstream media reports have claimed that Sprint will become the third major U.S. carrier to offer the iPhone with the debut of the iPhone 5 next month, but the fate of the iPhone on T-Mobile USA has been less clear. Despite a few claims of a T-Mobile iPhone</a> coming this year and evidence of prototypes for testing on the carrier's network, there had yet to be any solid reports of an launch from mainstream sources.

T-Mobile's status is of course complicated by AT&T's efforts to acquire the carrier, and effort that is being opposed by the U.S. government, Sprint, and a number of other groups.

Article Link: T-Mobile USA 'Not Going to Get the iPhone 5 This Year'
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/09/20/t-mobile-usa-not-going-to-get-the-iphone-5-this-year/
Caliber26

Caliber26

macrumors 68020
Sep 25, 2009
2,325
3,637
Orlando, FL
Ugh. I just hope that the next story isn't about how we're not getting a redesigned iPhone.

So, if they're not getting an iPhone 5, could it mean they're getting the 4S?
 
E

epiksol

macrumors newbie
Sep 19, 2011
27
15
Miami, FL
Sad news for me... :(

On the bright side, they are not officially getting the iPhone to subsidize but the phone could technically still support the T-mo 3G bands.

Nothing a Jailbreak & Unlock couldn't fix. ;)
 
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M-O

M-O

macrumors 6502a
Mar 15, 2011
502
0
guess we'll need a jailbreak for iOS 5 sooner than we thought...
 
TallManNY

TallManNY

macrumors 601
Nov 5, 2007
4,742
1,594
T-Mobile is going down market and can't afford the iPhone. If you have the cash, then stay with your AT&T iPhone. I'm hoping Sprint doesn't make the same decision as Sprint might put some pressure on AT&T and Verizon to lower the cost of their monthly plans.
 
A

alent1234

macrumors 603
Jun 19, 2009
5,688
170
i was telling someone yesterday how i think this is a scam by apple and AT&T to drive t-mo's value down

at&t will pay a lower price if t-mo's value drops. and it will be easier to get the deal approved if subscribers flee and make sprint stronger.

apple wants 3 carriers instead of two. a stronger sprint is in apple's best interest.

if sprint and t-mo are gone with only verizon and at&t left then one of them can start to dictate pricing to apple. a stronger sprint means that consumers have more choice
 
G

google

macrumors 6502
Sep 13, 2007
256
70
Hope this guy gets canned for not being able to get the best handset in the market. And gets canned for making a statement that will make magenta bleed customers.
 
Juan007

Juan007

macrumors 6502a
Jun 14, 2010
778
936
This is a very interesting comment because it can be interpreted in two ways.

"We" can be interpreted as being T-Mobile USA -- they are not going to get the iPhone 5 this year, but their competitors are.

"We" can be interpreted as the mobile phone industry! That means there will be no iPhone 5 released this year!

Someone needs to ask him to clarify.
 
M

macinnv

macrumors regular
Jan 17, 2011
223
0
Phoenix, AZ
alent1234 said:
i was telling someone yesterday how i think this is a scam by apple and AT&T to drive t-mo's value down

at&t will pay a lower price if t-mo's value drops. and it will be easier to get the deal approved if subscribers flee and make sprint stronger.

apple wants 3 carriers instead of two. a stronger sprint is in apple's best interest.

if sprint and t-mo are gone with only verizon and at&t left then one of them can start to dictate pricing to apple. a stronger sprint means that consumers have more choice
Click to expand...

There are some good points here and thats entirely possible.
 
P

pmz

macrumors 68000
Nov 18, 2009
1,949
0
NJ
T-Mobile was never going to get the iPhone 5.

The future of the wireless operator is in question. Despite efforts to block the acquisition, AT&T is likely going to buy T-Mobile. If they don't get them soon, they will get them when the bottom drops out.

Sprint and T-Mobile alike are vying for a second place, which in the U.S. today means the same as survival. If Sprint is given the iPhone 5, it will launch Sprint WAYYYY ahead of T-Mobile in terms of survivability. That, plus another year of no iPhone for T-Mobile, likely means the end of T-Mobile.

They will not be financially stable enough in a years time to protest the acquisition with any degree of sincerity. They will be absorbed by AT&T on the downswing, and AT&T will likely terminate the brand instead of keeping it alive as they initially desired to do.

AT&T doesn't care about T-Mobile or its customers. They want the 4G infrastructure, and they want whatever customers decide to stay.
 
D

DTphonehome

macrumors 68000
Apr 4, 2003
1,914
3,377
NYC
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I bet this has to do with the (soon to be) failed AT&T merger. They didn't devote resources to adding the iPhone when they assumed they would be merged with AT&T, who will certainly get the iPhone 5. Now they're caught with their pants down and may be the only large carrier left in the US without the iPhone.
 
Virgo

Virgo

macrumors 6502a
Jun 7, 2011
514
155
Los Angeles, CA
Juan007 said:
This is a very interesting comment because it can be interpreted in two ways.

"We" can be interpreted as being T-Mobile USA -- they are not going to get the iPhone 5 this year, but their competitors are.

"We" can be interpreted as the mobile phone industry! That means there will be no iPhone 5 released this year!

Someone needs to ask him to clarify.
Click to expand...

I would assume that he is speaking for T-Mobile only. I guess I'll have to buy unlocked for a premium and deal with edge speeds =\
 
X

X-rated

macrumors member
Apr 30, 2010
37
0
Thats because there won't be an iPhone 5 this year it is only going to be an iPhone 4s.
 
Agent-P

Agent-P

Contributor
Dec 5, 2009
2,502
23
The Tri-State Area
Well this just sucks. I really wanted T-Mobile to be getting the iPhone 5. Hopefully he's just being dumb and it does come here. If not, I'll have to switch carriers.

epiksol said:
Sad news for me... :(

On the bright side, they are not officially getting the iPhone to subsidize but the phone could technically still support the T-mo 3G bands.

Nothing a Jailbreak & Unlock couldn't fix. ;)
Click to expand...

I'm hoping this is the case. If the iPhone 5 is able to be fully run on T-Mobile's network, then I'll definitely pick up an unlocked version and use that instead. Totally worth it. Plus then I can get a Mango phone with my new contract and keep that as a backup/test phone.
 
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