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

How to turn off call forwarding on iPhone and Android

A person holding the Apple iPhone 15 Plus, showing the camera.

If you’re mysteriously missing calls on your iPhone or Android smartphone, it may be because call forwarding is activated on your line. In that case, all your incoming calls could be going somewhere else.

Call forwarding shouldn’t typically be active unless you’ve specifically turned it on, but another person or app may have done so without your knowledge. And since call forwarding is a carrier feature, it could still be enabled on a line you inherited from someone else, even if you’ve swapped their SIM card into your phone or transferred it to a new account.

Mobile

iPhone 16: news, rumored price, release date, and more

A person holding the Apple iPhone 15 Plus and Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

We're more than six months removed from the launch of the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro, so you know what that means: iPhone 16 rumors are in full force. Talk is heating up about everything from design leaks and rumored specs to camera changes and more.

Mobile

How to transfer photos from an iPhone to a computer

The Apple iPhone 15 Plus's gallery app.

As the old saying goes, the best camera is the one you always have with you. If you're like most iPhone users, that means you've likely amassed a sizeable collection of photos on your device. However, while Apple's Photos app is a great way to manage and view your photo library, it's never a good idea to keep all your eggs in one basket. After all, suffering a lost or broken iPhone is painful enough without also losing all your precious digital memories in the process.

Even if you're backing up your iPhone to iCloud or your computer, it's a good idea to keep your photos backed up separately. After all, opening a folder or a photo management app is a much easier way to get at your photos than trying to extract them from an iCloud or iTunes/Finder backup, which requires either restoring them to another iPhone or relying on special software tools.