The Great Verizon iPhone Debate: Worth It?

It’s the day that some of you have been waiting for: the iPhone is available for pre-order for current Verizon customers. The pros and cons of the Verizon iPhone have been swirling around the internet for weeks, so by now it should be no surprise that it will be a little different than your friend’s AT&T iPhone.

As you may have heard, the main difference is that you won’t be able to multi-task on the Verizon iPhone the way you can with AT&T’s. Basically, you won’t be able to do anything over the 3G connection while on a call. It is not certain yet whether the nifty hotspot capability (Wi-Fi tethering for up to five devices), that Verizon is trying to sell as a big bonus, will work when a phone call is received. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t be very excited if I depended on the phone’s hotspot for Wi-Fi but lost connection every time a call came through.

The other difference affects avid travelers and has more to do with the AT&T network instead of iPhone operation. Verizon won’t offer global roaming like AT&T does and service abroad won’t be as accessible as AT&T’s, which is more compatible with networks around the world.

The Verizon iPhone still won’t offer FaceTime over the 3G network and it will only work over Wi-Fi, the same existing limitation as AT&T’s. Sources believe that it shouldn’t be a problem for the Verizon iPhone and the AT&T iPhone to interact with each other using FaceTime. I would personally like to test it out myself.

Bottom line: If you are already a Verizon customer that just wants the iPhone (and you can suck up the extra costs if you don’t have an upgrade due) then go ahead and pre-order. If you are an existing AT&T iPhone customer, you have a lot of expensive hurdles in your way if you want to make the switch. The big decision is whether the expense is enough to outweigh the fact that you might get less features and no guarantee of a better connection.


Are you going to pre-order the Verizon iPhone? Switching from AT&T? Let us know and come connect with us on Twitter and Facebook.

About the Author: Jandee Ferland is the Social Network Engineer at IC. She is an avid fan of any technology that makes life a little easier and can often be found checking out new apps, posting on Twitter (@ICtweet), or learning how to podcast.