iPhone 5 Release Date: T-Mobile Tells Apple 'Ball's in Your Court'
Until now T-Mobile has notably been one of America’s major networks that has not carried the iPhone, and the network’s customers are listening intently to whether it will finally be available to them upon its proposed October 14 release.
T-Mobile Chief Marketing Officer Cole Brodman stated at the GigaOM Mobilize conference on Monday that the company wants to power the iPhone on its network.
"We'd love to have the iPhone whenever Apple makes that available," Brodman said.
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"The ball is in Apple's court."
Brodman noted on the T-Mobile Blog that the network powers over one million unlocked iPhones despite not being an official vendor or carrier of the smartphone.
After intense speculation that T-Mobile would be carrying the iPhone, it was Brodman who confirmed that the network would not.
At a T-Mobile internal Town Hall meeting on September 15, Brodman was reportedly quoted as saying, "We are not going to get the iPhone 5 this year.”
Commentators suggested that the statement indicated that T-Mobile could possibly get the iPhone 5 sometime after 2011.
But Brodman's new statement confirms that there are no plans between T-Mobile and Apple to bring the iPhone to the wireless network even in 2012.
"We'll wait for that phone call," he added.
In the mean while, Broadman recommends the host of Android powered phones hosted by T-Mobile.
The network says it is confident their Android phones will "rival or beat any smartphone out there in terms of functionality, speed, overall experience and features – including the iPhone."
T-Mobile suggests its recently unveiled Samsung Galaxy S2 or HTC Amaze as formidable iPhone alternatives, nothing that both smartphones support 4G capability, which no iPhone model has done to date.
It is also rumored that Sprint will be carrying the iPhone 5 upon its release. However the network has not yet confirmed or denied this.
