• Wall Street Journal, Thursday, October 7, 2010 10:53 AM

Since the dawn of soothsaying, it seems, tech pundits have been predicting that the iPhone was coming to Verizon. Now it's true for sure, Yukari Iwatani Kane and Ting-I Tsai tell us, even if the two principles remain publically noncommittal on the issue. At a press conference yesterday, Verizon president Lowell McAdam would only say: "At some point our business interests are going to align [with Apple's]." Apple was predictably silent.

But Iwatani Kane and Tsai, with assistance from Roger Cheng and Spencer E. Ante, report that Apple will begin mass-producing a new iPhone based on an alternative wireless technology used by Verizon by the end of the year. The phone will be released in the first quarter of 2011, sources tell them.

"This is the longest-running tease in the history of consumer products," says a relieved 31-year-old Garret Bedrin. "As loyal as I am to Apple, I won't leave Verizon," he said, which explains why he doesn't have an AT&T iPhone.

Apple reportedly is also developing a fifth-generation iPhone model that "would be a different form factor than those that are currently available," according to one source. I think that means it will be a different size.

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