While speaking at the NAB conference on Wednesday, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam made the claim that he was the one who sold the late Steve Jobs on adding 4G LTE capabilities to the iPhone.
“I was really trying to sell him and he sat there without any reaction. Finally, he said, ‘Enough. You had me at 10 Mbps. I know you can stream video at 10 Mbps.’ And Apple’s next phone was LTE,” McAdam said.
McAdam didn’t put an exact date on his conversation with Jobs, and considering Jobs died on October 5, 2011, just one day after the introduction of the iPhone 4S, McAdam’s timeline recollection may be a little off. Apple did not offer LTE until the iPhone 5, the 4S offered only HSPA+ capabilities.
No one can be sure just what role, if any the Verizon executive played in the addition of LTE capabilities to the iPhone, as Steve Jobs had been quoted numerous times saying LTE would eventually come to the iPhone, but that Apple wanted to do LTE in a way that wouldn’t damage the Apple user experience.
Early LTE chipsets were physically large, and were huge battery hogs.
McAdam also told the group that video now accounts for 50% of Verizon Wireless’ network traffic, and the carrier estimates that by 2017 it will make up two-thirds of all traffic on the network. The Verizon executive says that his company’s investment in LTE is what’s making the delivery of that video possible. “With 3G you have video clips but there is buffering. With 4G you can stream video,” he said.
