I was on ATT for years and never thought about my phone not working if I switched carriers. About 6 month ago I did switch carriers to T-Mobile and although happy in some respects I think their network is lacking a little so I thought about Verizon, this is when I discovered that my phone may not work on the Verizon network since I bought it from ATT. I still can't think of a good reason why apple would make phones that are restricted to certain network, seems they should all be unlocked phones so there is no confusion and if you want to take your phone to a different carrier that should be your choice and not be decided by which phone model you bought.
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iPhone 7 Plus Qualcomm LTE Modem Outperforms Intel LTE Modem by Significant Margin
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No argument there, and I wonder if in this cause Apple is moving to Intel and so the iPhone 8 will be intel only.
Well, if you're on a GSM carrier in the U.S., you're not going to be able to roam in the U.S. (or even foreign countries for that matter) on a CDMA network regardless of whether you have the Qualcomm or Intel modem phone. So, I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.
To me, having a "world" phone means I can travel to as many countries as possible and be able to have cellular service. I'm not aware of a single country where lack of CDMA support is going to be an issue. Maybe there will be some rural areas of certain countries that only have a CDMA network (again, tell me about it if it exists), but I'm not even sure you'd be able to roam onto those networks if you had the Qualcomm iPhone and it was provisioned for CDMA usage in the U.S. So, let me ask my original question another way - is there a CDMA network somewhere in the world (other than the U.S.) where a GSM network is not also available and where you'd actually be able to roam onto that network if you had service with Verizon or Sprint? I'm sure that situation exists somewhere, but I have yet to hear about it.
You buy unlocked and buy a SIM in those countries. I have friends who regularly travel to Asia who do this because there's no GSM service. Which is why having an unlocked phone is a good thing.
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Exactly. Which is pretty much my only point in saying that it DOES matter. Will it matter if I just stick with AT&T? Nahh... not really. And I am pretty sure I could, if I wanted to, find someone who wants to use my phone on AT&T or T-Mobile to sell it to next year. But, should I be restricted that way after buying full-price in the US while we still have a major carrier (VZW, I dunno if I think of Sprint as major, though some people do) using CDMA? Nope.
SIM cards for a CDMA network? Which country? Which network?
According to AT&T, there are multiple GSM/EDGE/UMTS/HSPA/LTE networks in Asia where a phone without CDMA support will have service.
https://www.att.com/maps/wireless-coverage/international.html
https://www.att.com/travelguide/coverage/roaming/step1.jsp
Of course, an unlocked phone would likely give you even more options.
According to the T-mobile website, the iPhone 7 (Intel version) will not work in Korea. The 5s, 6, 6s with Qualcomm modem will.
I assume the SIM is for the GSM portion and gives them the ability to roam on the CDMA while using that SIM. I have never asked for specifics, but I did work for AT&T about 10 years ago and I recall that people who regularly went to rural areas of most Asian countries (and a good portion of Mexico, but that may have changed) wanted what was then sold as a "true world" phone, which was this ugly thing that Nokia made, but it had all bands, so people wanted it.
I know that networks have changed and GSM is prevalent now, but I just said that I know people who deliberately buy Verizon just down the street from me because they cannot get AT&T service in their LIVING ROOMS. I live in a suburb of over 150k people, so I'm not a hillbilly. LOL. We have 2 Apple stores within 15 miles of my house. So, yeah... if people near me are deliberately choosing Verizon for a neighborhood down the road from me when I know I can easily get 5 bars on AT&T in most of my immediate area, I know there are still gaps in coverage, even in the USA.
Not a show-stopper for me, just an annoyance.
Modem performance notwithstanding, you have to be careful using SpeedTest. It's been my theory for years that the isp's know we use it, and prioritize its traffic, bandwidth, and speed. (Even with Net Neutrality in place).
That's interesting because, according to AT&T, South Korea has LTE on Band 3 and UMTS on 2100 Mhz, both of which are supported by the Intel iPhone 7.
https://www.att.com/travelguide/coverage/coverage_details.jsp?CIDL=408&MNC=410&DID1=644&DID2=&STEP=5
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I hear you, I just keep hearing people call the Qualcomm iPhone 7 the "world" phone and there seems to be no real evidence to support this - really, this is the first time I've ever heard people claim that having CDMA support makes a phone a world phone - in the past, it's always been the opposite, when a CDMA-based phone had GSM support added in, then people would start calling it a world phone. But, as you say, if you want the ability to switch between Verizon/Sprint and AT&T/T-mobile, that is definitely a reason to go with the Qualcomm model, and I can totally understand that.
It's not an excuse. it's reality when you have to produce 100 million phones in time for a single release date for 30 countries. Sometimes suppliers can produce enough components and sometimes they cannot. Same thing happened with the screens, processors and batteries every year too. Besides, it's better to have multiple suppliers for competitive and redundancy reasons.
You are completely imagining problems that you will never have. No one will remember this a week from now and no one would've even noticed if tests weren't performed. That tells me that no real world users even notice the speed difference. This is the same issue as the RAM and same issue as the processor story last in last year's iPhone. Did those make a difference in resale? No.
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Did you even read the story?So I guess it's cool just to make up facts now? Supporting evidence can probably be filed under TL;DR
When does the realization hit that your theory is just a conspiracy as well? No more or less valid than the supplier v supplier theory.
You're basing this on what, gut feeling? None of us know the reason. You could be 100% right, but so could the supplier competition believers. It also could be a combination of both theories.
FYI, both theories are wrong. Apple just grabbed Intel by the Serval and said make me some modems.
I mean, if you're going to go conspiracy, go full conspiracy.
Quick update: Spoke to Apple and they told me that they've had a good many people who paid full-price for AT&T and T-Mobile devices call with similar concerns and they are offering full refunds for people who want to go out and buy the Verizon or the SIM-Free models so they have carrier flexibility in the US, since they previously did have that with iPhone models until this year.
So, I have 2 weeks to source a VZW phone or a SIM-free phone if I want to return my AT&T one, I reckon. So, that's decent customer service, eh?
I'm glad they didn't try to feed me a line about how I should've known they'd switch these this year. That was nice.
So, I have 2 weeks to source a VZW phone or a SIM-free phone if I want to return my AT&T one, I reckon. So, that's decent customer service, eh?
I'm glad they didn't try to feed me a line about how I should've known they'd switch these this year. That was nice.
Why are you comparing two different phone release years and blaming Apple? Apple has little to do with that. You have no understanding of a supply chain. The only thing Apple can do is make sure they have multiple component suppliers that meet their tolerances like they do with screens, batteries, processors, etc. This keeps prices down and allows them to fulfill more orders. Or would you prefer they only go with the fastest modem available and then you have to wait 6 months for your iPhone pre-order?
Could you expound on your quote. I have no idea why you're asking the question. Details would be much appreciated.
What quote? I asked you a question because it seems you skipped right past the headline and story to the comments section. You're talking about conspiracies and nonsense when we know they contracted 2 different suppliers, Qualcomm and Intel. Now these two modems are a little different in speed (not enough for users to notice). Either they both fell into Apple's tolerances or the slower one had manufacturing issues and couldn't yield better modems. It doesn't matter because Apple had to do this to meet demand. Otherwise, we still wouldn't have our iPhones today. I don't see any story here except for the same fools trying to make a story out of last year's CPU difference (Samsung vs. TSCM). Do you?
This is what my quote was about. It wasn't about the actual article per se. Apple splitting the modem supply to meet demand isn't some fact. It's something you believe to be true. That's why I wrote:
"You're basing this on what, gut feeling? None of us know the reason..."
Everyone I quoted in that particular post (you, ChazSch, and supersalo) presented your theories as if they were definitive facts. They weren't. You were guessing just like the people who believe Apple did it to drive down cost. That is, unless you have some evidence to suggest otherwise.
I miss the time when all iPhones were the same performance and feature wise. So a regular person could have the same iPhone that Steve Jobs was carrying in his pocket, with less flash memory but 100% all features. Now there is a big segment of the population not touched by Tim Cook desire to change the world. That segment will be changed a little less than himself.
Wow...It's really a shame how much of a difference there is on a Samsung Galaxy S7 edge. (Athens, Greece on 4G+)
There wasn't a difference between last year's 16 and 64GB model as far as I remember from Anand tech review I think. These are NVMe SSDs/controllers adopted from MacBooks to work with the iPhone. Parallelism alone cannot explain the 8x difference. There's got to be cheaper stuff involved.
And besides, it isn't exactly hard to produce a 32GB SSD that does decent sequential writes(100MB/s+). But for cost reasons it made sense for Apple to put cheaper NAND FLASH or poorer controller or something in the SKU that would most likely be the most sold one. The read speeds are good and only people noticing the poor writes are people that pay attention, install big apps and/or do restores. Pretty small demographic.
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But you still have to say 'Verizon version, please', right. Or you might get the AT&T with the Intel modem.
Wow...It's really a shame how much of a difference there is on a Samsung Galaxy S7 edge. (Athens, Greece on 4G+)
Not surprised. That seems to be the new 'American Way'. With healthcare, government, lots of things, we pay more and get less than other countries. Although our gas is usually cheaper...
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They list the same SKU from Apple (MNQL2LL/A), but have different SKU's for the iPhone depending on carrier. Sounds like someone just copy and pasted the Apple SKU?
A buyer does not care really if he has a Samsung vs TSMC SOC, but he/she would really care if the the phone they're buying from you will/will not work on their network. So your claim of equivalence is moot. There's this thing called supply/demand and when you have 2 iphone 7's for sale, which do you think will have a better price? The one that only works on 2 networks vs the one that will on all networks? A TSMC/Samsung iphone 6s works on ANY NETWORK in the US.