What iFixit Found
If the Verizon iPhone has a dual-mode chip inside, there must be a way to modify it into a world phone for your trip to Europe this summer right? Sorry to burst your bubble, but no. The first stumbling block for the Verizon iPhone is that it doesn't have a SIM card slot. Without a SIM card there's no way to get access to a GSM network.
So the Verizon iPhone is not a world phone or even world-phone ready, but what about iPhone 5? Apple clearly has the experience with designing the hardware that can do it, albeit in two different phones.
A world phone would also make it easier (and probably cheaper) to produce just one iPhone model that could handle almost any network.
The one drawback is that a dual-mode GSM/CDMA device would be operating in an increasingly 4G world. In other words, 3G is yesterday's news and the faster so-called 4G networks such as LTE, HSPA+ and WiMax are the future. Verizon is pushing its faster 4G LTE network with new Android phones, and Sprint is pushing forward with its 4G WiMax network. AT&T is also moving forward with plans for an LTE network this year and hopes to be fully operational by 2013. So perhaps what Apple needs isn't a dual-mode 3G phone, but -- as PC World's Mark Sullivan suggested in January -- a triple-mode GSM/CDMA/LTE phone. Now that would truly be a world iPhone.
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