gdgt

Actually Branchex and Stlaky, Clearwire is the company that provides the WiMAX towers and service in the USA and Sprint is a majority owner of that company... not many people know this but both Google and Intel have made a major investment in WiMAX technology where they invested tons of cash... So in essence you could say that the Intel computer market and Google are already heavy backers of Sprint... It would be perfect if Apple would endorse the WiMAX technology but it appears that they are more interested in getting as many devices in the hands of all folks who can purchase their products... i mean that's what the unlocked/prepay iPads are for.. Apple is actually for the first time marketing to a less affluent crowd... AT&T and Verizon are where most people are subscribing so a prepay here an unlocked device here and Apple will soon break down the rules of telcos ... I mean we will see a Prepay iPhone within the next 12 months... I also feel that both Google and Clearwire/Sprint are also doing their part in offering affordable unlimited data wireless 4G in the form of WiMAX... The telco's don't see it coming but there's about to be a major shake up... I kinda believe Apple is avoiding Sprint and WiMAX as a form of smokescreen to blindside the telco's.. just like Apple did to the music industry and the media/video market... as far as I'm concerned Apple and Google are in this together... its all about content and destroying old paradigms so they can rule it all... ok that's enough of my elaborate Trojan Horse theories for today.

They may face a bad reputation but they can stand it, somethings they already offered are mediocre for awhile (mobile me, Google Wave). What would be worse is if mobile broadband had a dualoply similar to home broadband with only the cable and phone companies. Those duos have everyone worried about net neutrality, imagine what Verizon and AT&T could get away with.

That's why they would wanna go in with Apple, they certainly know how to run a store and support services.