Late period Verizon iPhone, white iPhone point to extension of 4 era

The Verizon iPhone arriving in the third quarter of the iPhone 4 era and the white iPhone arriving in the fourth quarter just doesn’t add up. You don’t start customizing your car to your personal liking a few months before to expect to trade it in. Accordingly, Apple is too logic-bound a company to be dressing up the iPhone 4 so late in the game only to dump the dress-up and start over so soon afterwards. So when we keep hearing that the Verizon iPhone 4 is coming in the first quarter (various sources) and the white iPhone 4 is coming in the second quarter (cryptically implied by Apple’s own marketing materials), the notion that the iPhone 5 will debut around the time that second quarter is ending is fairly absurd. So what does it mean?

It’s not unusual to throw enticements into the mix in the later stages of the current model, so as to keep sales afloat as it becomes more dated. But the white iPhone has been such a sore spot throughout the iPhone 4 era that bringing it back with just few months remaining the iPhone 4′s lifespan would feel like little more than a kick in the teeth of those users who held out for the white model for as long as they could before ultimately settling for the black iPhone 4 instead. And launching a Verizon iPhone 4 means bringing an entirely new hardware version of the iPhone 4 to market. A few months before the iPhone 4 goes bye bye altogether? Why? Just because a desperate Verizon is begging for it as soon as possible? Again, it’s just not logical. Unless, of course, the iPhone 4 era is going to continue well beyond the usual summer turnover period.

Put a winter Verizon iPhone 4 and a spring white iPhone 4 within the context of the iPhone 4 era lasting all the way until, say, September of next year and all the sudden the whole thing makes a lot more sense. Apple’s reason for extending the iPhone 4 era could be because the iPhone 4 is selling so well, or because the firing of Mark Papermaster and subsequent reorganization of the iPhone hardware division has delayed the iPhone 5′s progress, or because 4G networks are rolling out slowly and Apple wants to wait to launch an iPhone 5 at a time when 4G actually exists on Verizon and AT&T – or at least the former.

Then again, Apple has nearly unlimited resources and can pull off anything it wants with regard to development. If it snarkily decided to debut the white iPhone 4 three days before the launch of the iPhone 5 and then kill it off just for kicks, it wouldn’t be a popular move but it wouldn’t add up to more than a rounding error on Apple’s balance sheet. So moves like launching a Verizon iPhone 4 and white iPhone 4 with a few months left in the iPhone 4 era could simply be chalked up to aggression on Apple’s part. But darned if it doesn’t all make more sense the minute you consider the notion of an extended iPhone 4 era. More: Here’s more on the Verizon iPhone.