iPhone on Verizon Network Soon, Says WSJ

On Tuesday in a "mysterious event" in New York City, Verizon will announce that it will offer the Apple iPhone over its network, "a person familiar with the matter" tells the Wall Street Journal. While it's not yet known how soon the opportunity for Verizon customers to chuck their wanna-be touch phones and switch to the darling of Apple's eye and profit-and-loss statement, Twitter and the comment streams in various tech blogs were flooded with eager customers and speculation.

The announcement had to be big; after all, it's set for 1/11/11 at 11 a.m. Eastern time. And as our sister blog Engadget pointed out in their post about the matter, this would make the fifth year in a row that Apple, despite having no presence at the tech world's annual festival of newness, became the biggest news at CES.

On the BGR site, Boy Genius Jonathan Geller posits the iPhone will launch on Verizon's network February 3. Why? There's a vacation freeze for all U.S. Verizon outlets from February 3 through 6, Thursday through Sunday, theoretically for the big flood of customers coming in to buy the newest toy available on their home network. In other rumors, Steve Jobs may appear at the Verizon event; Sprint is crying in its beer; and Android is a dying breed.