Steve had no choice but to go with AT&T. They were the only ones who would give into his demands. He wanted full Internet, no carrier logo, no carrier involvement in the operating system, and he wanted a portion of each month's iPhone customer's bill to be paid to Apple, and don't forget about visual voicemail.
Exactly.
He was thinking that if he went with Verizon...
The iPhone wouldn't have the iOS in it's current form.
The iPhone wouldn't have a full internet safari browser in it's current form.
The iPhone wouldn't have an appstore or an itunes or ibooks store in its current form (Verizon insisted that all purchases on the phone must be made thru a verizon online store front)
The iPhone would have a big ugly verizon logo on it (AT&T unlike verizon offered to let apple release their phone without any AT&T branding on it)
You would have to go to the verizon stores and call verizon to buy an iPhone or to get any customer service or bug fixes/replacements for the iPhone (verzion refused to let apple take over the customer service aspects of their device)