Verizon iPhone... Seriously?

If you're like me, or even just keep up with the basics of technology (or in other words, read Gizmodo and Engadget once a week) you know that the Verizon iPhone is the biggest, most-wanted not-real phone on the entire market. Up until now. Or at least that's what latest news reports claim.

Now I mean, sure, Verizon is cool and all, and the coverage is more saturated than AT&T (better bars in the same places, as far as I've seen), but look, for someone that's been stuck his whole life on the OLD Cingular (the crappy one) and then T-Mobile, AT&T has pretty darn good coverage. More than enough to get the average person through the day anyway.

As any of you that have tried to run your iPhone on a different network know, it's different. You can't get the little AT&T devices to run on Verizon. But it's really just a tiny chip that has a different radio/receiver (CDMA vs. GSM) and maybe fine tuned for certain bandwiths. But it's just a small chip change, and it doesn't affect the performance of the iPhone. Plus some international iPhone's (correct me if I'm wrong, but I think India) already use CMDA Radios, which means a new iPhone on a different carrier is more of a marketing change than a physical one.

Or as far as we know of. While I'm assuming it won't happen because of how inconsiderate and unnecesary it would be, yes, Apple could make a few minor tweaks to the iPhone 4 before repackaging it. There have been leaks that say that Apple has adjusted the frame to prevent death grip issues, and a slightly different chip would be needed to run on Verizon. But all the same, I'm not ruling out the possibility of a higher clocked A4 CPU, just that if it doesn't come to AT&T, there are going to be a LOT of dissatisfied users (well, all the current ones too, but that's another story).

Regarding the rumors, I'm not going to say that Unlimited Data Plans are out of the picture, but I have a feeling this device is going to run on regular CDMA data, and not LTE. Which means, sure, chew up all the data you want, because the cool (or eh... nerdy?) guys are getting the maximum LTE Network speeds with their Thunderbolt's, etc etc. While it could be a marketing diversion to keep the 4G Networks at near-4G speeds, I think it's simpler than that: Verizon needs to convince regular users that the credibility AT&T has built up with the iPhone isn't worth a damn and that you, as an iPhone user, need to switch to them.

Will a Verizon iPhone be succesful? Assuming that everyone didn't already buy an iPhone in the last two years, possibly. While only time can tell about questions like these, I do have to ask: What becomes of the Droid line now?