Verizon's holding a special event on January 11. They're announcing the Verizon iPhone. We're almost certain of it, and here's why. Updated.
There's been a Verizon event making the rounds—it's next Tuesday, January 11th. The invite has been sent to MG Siegler of Techcrunch and Jim Dalrymple of Loop Insight—both pretty prolific Apple reporter/writers/bloggers/whatever—along with our friends at MSNBC, Engadget and others. As MG himself notes:
I don't typically get invites directly from Verizon to anything. At least not that I can recall. They usually send those directly to the MobileCrunch and CrunchGear guys. But this invite appears to very specifically be for me - it's non-transferable. Would Verizon send me such an invite unless it was specially about Apple?
Here's what's key: We're great friends with Verizon. (Hi guys!) We've worked with them for years, and we've been to like every event they've had over the last three years. We haven't gotten an invite. Which is weird. And Jim Dalrymple, who received an invite, only writes about Apple and doesn't cover Verizon directly. We've reached out to Verizon to see why, exactly, we weren't invited, but we've gotten no comment yet. (Update: Verizon's official response is a big ol' no comment.)
The only reason we can think of is that it's an Apple event, and Steve doesn't want us there. You know the story.
The other evidence is strong too: Added to everything that's been reported over the last few months—and again today in the Times, WSJ, All Things D and Evolver—we think Verizon's announcing the iPhone.
P.S. Hey Verizon, we totally understand. We still love you!