Next iPhone won’t be LTE? AT&T’s first LTE phone won’t arrive until late 2011

By Mike Dunn August 11, 2011

There has been a long-time rumor about the next-generation iPhone being an LTE device, but AT&T’s latest announcement might have finally squashed that rumor. Pete Ritcher, senior VP AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, talked about AT&T’s plan for rolling out its 4G LTE network on Wednesday. Ritcher stated that the first LTE handset will come out closer to the end of the year.

Even though the LTE network should be launched any day now in five select markets, there won’t be a phone coming out soon with LTE connectivity. The very first devices will be USB data sticks, and there is also a rumored LTE tablet coming soon. Ritcher says AT&T is taking its time with handsets on purpose. The company claims it wants battery life to improve on LTE handsets before releasing one. The biggest knock currently on Verizon’s LTE phones is their battery life, so this explanation makes sense.

Ritcher went on to say that by the end of the year AT&T plans to have LTE active in 15 markets. With an initial launch of just five markets, that is a pretty big jump in just a couple of months. AT&T will focus on core markets first, and roll out the service on a market-by-market basis.

As we teased at the start of this article, the most (or least) exciting bit about this announcement may be what Ritcher didn’t bring up. With the launch of the next generation of iPhone rumored to be either in September or October, it looks as though that the next iPhone won’t be an LTE device, or at least it won’t be on AT&T. This might not be a surprise for some people, but it was still nice to hold out hope.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Mike graduated from University of Arizona with a degree in poetry, and made his big break by writing love sonnets to the…

Mobile

3 reasons why I’ll actually use Anker’s new iPhone power bank

A person holding the Anker MagGo Power Bank.

Power banks are a necessary evil, and even if you don’t consider yourself a “power user” who's likely to drain a phone’s battery in less than a day, there will be times when one comes in handy. And when I am forced to carry one, I want it to be as helpful and versatile as possible.

I’ve been trying Anker’s MagGo Power Bank 10K -- meaning it has a 10,000mAh cell inside it -- and there are three reasons why I'm OK with it taking up valuable space in my bag.
It has a screen on it

Mobile

Here’s how Apple could change your iPhone forever

An iPhone 15 Pro Max laying on its back, showing its home screen.

Over the past few months, Apple has released a steady stream of research papers detailing its work with generative AI. So far, Apple has been tight-lipped about what exactly is cooking in its research labs, while rumors circulate that Apple is in talks with Google to license its Gemini AI for iPhones.

But there have been a couple of teasers of what we can expect. In February, an Apple research paper detailed an open-source model called MLLM-Guided Image Editing (MGIE) that is capable of media editing using natural language instructions from users. Now, another research paper on Ferret UI has sent the AI community into a frenzy.

Mobile

There’s a big problem with the iPhone’s Photos app

The Apple iPhone 15 Plus's gallery app.

While my primary device these days continues to be my iPhone 15 Pro, I’ve dabbled with plenty of Android phones since I’ve been here at Digital Trends. One of my favorite brands of phone has been the Google Pixel because of its strong suite of photo-editing tools and good camera hardware.

Google first added the Magic Eraser capability with the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, which is a tool I love using. Then, with the Pixel 8 series, Google added the Magic Editor, which uses generative AI to make edits that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. There are also tools like Photo Unblur, which is great for old photographs and enhancing images that were captured with low-quality sensors.