Perhaps the juiciest thing to come out of the launch today, though, happened during the Q&A session of the launch press conference, where one of the company's executive vice presidents apparently noted that Apple is in the process of manufacturing an AWS-compliant iPhone and that we should "expect an announcement in the coming months" regarding Vidéotron's launch. (http://mobile.engadget.com/2010/09/09/videotron-launches-mobile-service-in-canada-lots-of-smartphones/)

You may remember when SaskTel's president and CEO prematurely announced (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=123640) the iPhone 4...

Who else is using Vidéotron's technology? I can't believe that Apple would come out with a different version of the iPhone just for them given their relatively tiny market.

T-Mobile USA is a big one, besides the newcomers in Canada.

Vidéotron joins Wind Mobile and Moblicity using AWS (UMTS IV) in Canada, and they all have U.S. roaming with T-Mobile. For Apple, a market is a market, so after doing their bean counting they'd determine if it is worthwhile to provide such an iPhone version.

For Apple, a market is a market, so after doing their bean counting they'd determine if it is worthwhile to provide such an iPhone version.

Yep, but I kind of based my assumption on the fact that Apple didn't give a CDMA iPhone for Bell and Telus which arguably have a much bigger market than Videotron...

CDMA is a technology that requires a license from Qualcomm, while GSM and HSPA are open standards. That's why there was no CDMA iPhone. :)

I would assume a Videotron iPhone means a T-Mobile iPhone. The big difference between an AWS iPhone and a CDMA iPhone is that an AWS iPhone requires only a minor tweak to the radios they use at the moment while a CDMA iPhone would require a full redesign. An AWS version would be cheap and easy to make by comparison.

That being said, the rumoured "intelligence" amongst Apple analysts and watchers is that the next iPhone will be a CDMA version for Verizon and that can only come when the "exclusive" contract with AT&T expires.

Well it would be nice to have AWS added to the iPhone.. heck, for iPhone 4 Apple just added 2 more bands making a total of 5 (800,850,900,1900,2100). I think the reason for not yet adding 1700 in there is to keep AT&T happy with their contract and not having an iPhone that would work on t-mobile USA
s 3G network. If anything maybe iPhone 5 will get AWS, but I don't think Apple will go changing the hardware in the middle of the product's cycle just to work on a few small AWS carriers in Canada.