Did Cingular cave to Apple demands that Verizon rejected?

I’ve been traveling nonstop the past few weeks and carrying a USA Today business section that’s a couple of weeks old. Sorry for the late commentary, but I have to mention the article “Verizon rejected Apple phone deal” that describes the onerous demands that Apple made of Verizon when negotiating a potential iPhone deal. According to the story, Apple wanted a percentage of the monthly cellular service fees and wanted to severely limit where the iPhone would be sold. Ironically, I had written the column “Has Jobs lost his magic?” in the days after the iPhone introduction and I questioned how Jobs would adapt to the cellular world where playing nice with partners is pretty much a necessity. I guess I should have known he would still want things his way. It will be interesting to discover down the road how much Cingular gave up in money and control to secure the iPhone deal.

In any event, I won’t be buying an iPhone. I still believe it has more sizzle than useable function. When I wrote the column, mine seemed the one skeptic voice with trade press and analysts alike embarrassingly singing the praises of the device clearly without careful consideration.I still believe that the lack of true 3G support alone is a roadblock to success. Since the intro there have been some more reasonable evaluations. My EDN colleague Brian Dipert posted among the most detailed evaluations and set of links in “The Apple iPhone: 10 significant shortcomings.”

And as long as I’m once again questioning Apple, I may as well have my say on Jobs headline-grabbing plea for music with no DRM that Apple issued last week. I can’t believe that even Jobs could present the arguments that he did with a straight face. They run counter to every action that he has taken recently and over the years. I’d challenge Jobs to license his DRM to just one major consumer electronics vendor to prove that he is serious. The best blow-by-blow account of why Jobs spun the story the way he did is on the Good Morning Silicon Valley blog.