Yukari Iwatani Kane and Ting-i Tsai reporting for the Wall Street Journal:

Verizon, in those earlier discussions, balked at Apple’s requirement that Verizon not allow its retail partners to sell the phone, people familiar with the discussion said at the time. Verizon also declined to give up its ability to sell content like music and videos through its proprietary service, these people said.

And a great point from MG Siegler:

If Apple really does care about U.S. market share — and again, indications are that they actually do — they need Verizon more than Verizon needs them. And that’s a bad place to be in — and one Apple isn’t used to in recent yea

There is zero doubt in my mind that Siegler is right, Apple needs more carriers in the U.S. to continue to grow its market share – that is painfully obvious. The thing that I keep bouncing around in my head though is perhaps there is a CDMA iPhone in January and a GSM phone – both are sold directly from Apple in an unlocked state – a ‘here it is come and get it’ approach.

Wouldn’t that be interesting? Would you pay for an unlocked iPhone – maybe if the price was right. What if Apple keeps AT&T as the only carrier that you can buy directly through but sells phones unlocked that work on any network in the country? That sounds like a pretty good model to me – it would remove a ton of complaints while giving Apple the entire U.S. wireless customer base all at once.

Again though it is all going to come down to $$$.