I think they had to partner with somebody.

You can't move the kind of volumes they're probably shooting for without a carrier distribution channel in this country.

Look at all the expensive Nokias people import. Lot of them have WCDMA 2100, which can't be used in the US. Now if a carrier really wanted those high-end Nokias, they probably would have worked to support US networks more.

But because people have to get these from eBay or smaller web sites, their sales are limited. Also the high price makes it a smaller market.

And Apple obviously has to come out with a GSM product. They could have supported CDMA as well if they struck a deal with Verizon. But apparently one of the sticking points was that Verizon only wanted people to buy music through their network. No sideloading, which is buy on computer and then sync with the phone. AT&T gave up on not forcing people to buy downloads only through their network.

Plus I'm sure the other part of the deal was how much AT&T was willing to share vs. the other carriers.

To get as big a distribution, the choice was either AT&T or Verizon -- forget about selling unlocked because that's a niche and most iPod users who might buy the iPhone want and one-stop solution.

Now would Verizon have made it more attractive? There is certainly detractors to Verizon as well. So they were going to antagonize people either way they went.