Quote:
Originally Posted by quagmire
Apple put LTE in the iPhone about 1 year after everyone else did. That is because at the time, the only way the Android phone makers were implementing LTE was with two radios. One for 3G for backward compatibility and voice calls and another radio for LTE. That compromise resulted in piss poor battery life if you turned on LTE as two radios were turned on. Apple waited until Qualcomm came out with one radio that had 3G and LTE on it.
Apple was not willing to go with that compromise at the time especially since LTE wasn't widely available yet.
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First, it was over 2 years later. (iPhone 5 was released in Sept 2012, HTC EVO 4G in March 2010)
Next, I actually had the first US released 4G phone (HTC EVO 4G), that I ordered on pre-sale, in a 4g market (atlanta). I'm certain I was one of the early testers to the 4G infrastructure at the time, given the 4G coverage area's were so small. That being said, the battery usage was not that bad considering what other phones did at the time. Yes, it did have 2 radios, but the 4G (WiMAX) radio was not as bad on battery life as one would expect. I was regularly getting 4ish hours on 4G without much trouble. At the time, that was phenomenal. Particularly considering how much faster the download speeds were.
The fact that Apple waited was unwarranted beyond the fact that they dropped the ball and did not want to figure out how to solder a new chip on their already printed boards.