AT&T no longer holds a monopoly on Apple products in the phone service providers’ world – the iPad has come to Verizon Wireless.
As of October 28, Verizon Wireless stores have started selling Apple’s iPad product, though there have been rumors of the iPhone appearing in the product lineup in the future.
Karen Schulv, public relations spokesperson for Verizon Wireless, said at this point, Verizon is just sending out the iPad.
“We don’t have any other announcements to make about future Apple partnerships; we are just really excited about having the iPad right now,” Schulv said.
Verizon is coupling the Apple iPad with their MiFi device, which is a personal WiFi hotspot about the size of a credit card, but thicker.
“The combination of the iPad and the MiFi device means basically you can use the iPad on the Verizon Wireless network,” Schulv said.
According to Schulv, the partnership between Apple and Verizon to bring the iPad to Verizon was a joint effort.
“Our leadership teams have been speaking for quite some time and it’s just now come to fruition,” Schulv said. “We have always had quite a deep and wide product lineup, and in recent years we have started introducing numerous other data products, including netbooks and MyFi devices and those sorts of broadband items. So the iPad just fit perfectly in our expanding product base.”
According to Schulv, it is always exciting to see how the market reacts to the introduction of new products and what future might come from that.
“So far it’s been a great seller for us. We’re excited about having an Apple product; we’re very excited about having the first tab by Verizon Wireless. We do have some other tabs coming out very soon,” Schulv said. “I think we’ve announced our Samsung Galaxy tab, which we’ll be launching very soon and so we’re very excited about continuing to expand that lineup of our products.”
Jeanine Soufan, a sophomore in political science, said the iPhone should have come to Verizon before the iPad.
“I keep reading that it’s going to happen, that they’re going to get the iPhone, but they’ve been saying that for a year now,” Soufan said.
Jonna Green, a sophomore in zoology, said she doesn’t agree with the move to bring in the iPad instead of the iPhone.
“The iPad isn’t a phone,” Green said. “It would make more sense for the iPhone to be at Verizon than the iPad.”
However, Green said that since the company has already offered an Apple product, the iPhone will probably be introduced soon.
“Even though AT&T has the iPhone exlusively right now, it seems logical that Apple will start offering more products to other companies soon,” Green said.
Verizon’s original response to AT&T’s iPhone was the Droid series of smartphones, and Schulv said the introduction of Apple’s iPad should not compete with the Droid because they are very different devices.
“The Droid products are all phones — they’re hand-held mobile devices that incorporate the mobile calling opportunity. The iPad obviously does not. The iPad is basically a flat computer without the calling capabilities,” Schulv said. “We don’t see them competing at this point.”
