USA Today: Verizon Passed on iPhone—Jobs' Terms Too Stringent

Leslie Cauley, in USA Today, reports that before Jobs placed the iPhone with Cingular AT&T, he offered it first to Verizon. According to Cauley, Jobs insisted on too much control over distribution, replacements, etc. to satisfy Verizon.

Mickeleh's Take: USA reports on the terms that Verizon rejected, but I'm not sure we know what terms Cingular accepted. Apple's insistence on determining when a customer deserves a replacement phone raises a flag. Mobile Carriers have been very liberal about offering instant replacements when a phone is in warranty. Apple's policies have been more stringent. (see Scoble's rant on his son's experiences with a rebooting MacBook Pro.)

Steve Jobs famously said that Apple isn't good at reaching their own customers by going through the orifices of the carriers. Could it be that Cingular has a wider orifice than Verizon?

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See also Brian Dear's Notes on Steve's session at the Wall Street Journal D Conference (2005)
See also Peter Hirshberg and me speaking later at same conference. I heard Steve's "orifices" remark and it resonated deeply. At the time I was working at Digeo and we were struggling to get Moxi through the orifices of the cable carriers. At CES, Digeo announced an orifice by-pass: they plan to offer Moxi directly to consumers through retail.

(Tags: iPhone, Verizon, Cingular, Steve Jobs, Tech, Gadgets, Moxi, Digeo,)