Didn't forget
Actually, I mentioned said migration in the article itself. Rollout will being in 2010, but only in a few select cities. Verizon will not sell a phone that will only work in four or five urban areas -- any phones they sell will have to be compatible with both their new network and their old one, which the current iPhone is not. 2013 is probably earliest we can expect to see 4G coverage wide enough to reasonably sell GSM-only phones.
Congress or the DoJ could
Congress or the DoJ could theoretically make exclusivity illegal, but I highly doubt they could force Apple to engineer an entirely distince phone model just to run on Verizon. My overall point is that the barrier to selling the iPhone on the Verizon network is technical, not contractual.
Of course, it's possible that Apple could sell the iPhone on T-Mobile, which would be a sort of fig-leaf of non-exclusivity while still not radically changing the situation.
nameroc, it might strike
nameroc, it might strike someone from outside as silly, but it's standard procedure in the U.S. All wireless carriers in the U.S. charge for minutes you talk on the phone -- it doesn't matter if they're incoming or outgoing.
Different cultures of payments arise in different places for seemingly arbitrary reasons. I'll never forget the first time I went to Europe and visited a friend who was living in an apartment in Rome with several other people; everyone was keeping meticulous records of their phone calls because local phone service was metered. That boggled my mind because local phone service on a landline is unlimited in the U.S. as a matter of course. Now that mobile phones have risen as the de facto standard phone service, the shoe is on the other foot in terms of silliness, but there you are.
Apple isn't stopping you from doing this.
While you can make arguments on either side whether Apple is cutting off its nose to spite its face in making this process inconvenient, I do have to point out that Apple doesn't stop you from doing exactly what you describe -- listening to music you've purchased in any way you choose. Now that iTunes music is DRM-free, you can listen to it on your Palm Pre or whatever you want. This change only means that you can't sync it using iTunes -- you have to use third-party software, or just drag the files onto the Pre disk.
Sorry about that, John -- I
Sorry about that, John -- I have attributed the quote to you now, which is I think accurate? I could have sworn that the source I saw the quote in originally attributed it to Adobe's CEO, but it doesn't anymore and I may have misread it.
Point made on reliability, but...
...a cell phone isn't a luxury if you can get one for less money than a landline; in that case, choosing a cell over a landline makes good economic sense. While the iPhone is pricey, you can definitely get plans with more basic phones that are cheaper than the typical all-you-can-eat plans that the legacy Bells offer. Having a phone number is a necessity; the question that arises is, what's the most efficient way of getting one? For younger people who move often and expect to have phone connectivity everywhere, it's a landline (and the superior connection that goes with it) that's a luxury, not a cell phone.
Did Apple ever seriously
Did Apple ever seriously consider going with Verizon? My understanding is that it was only ever interested in going with GSM/UMTS carriers, which Verizon is not, precisely for that whole uniformity reason again -- GSM/UMTS is the dominant tech everywhere but North America, and Apple didn't really feel any need to build a CDMA/EV-DO version of the iPhone just to play on Verizon's network.
There are other carriers in China, too, though none have the reach of China Mobile.
Oops!
Right you are! I fixed!