After reporting iPhone 5 rumors for 15 months now, we thought we'd seen them all: bigger, thinner, thicker, faster, cheaper, buttonless, the list goes on.
Then on Monday the wildest one appeared on our radar: Boy Genius Report's Jonathan Geller reports that Sprint will get the iPhone 5 months ahead of AT&T or Verizon, and as a 4G WiMAX device.
"I have been told that Sprint will be getting the iPhone 5—yes the real iPhone 5, not the iPhone 4S—as an exclusive. And it will be a 4G WiMAX device. AT&T and Verizon would launch the iPhone 4S and get the iPhone 5 some time in the first quarter of next year as an LTE device. Globally, the iPhone 5 might be available as a 4G HSPA+ device."
His story went live just minutes before the Wall Street Journal reported that Sprint has agreed to a four-year, $20 billion contract to purchase around 30 million iPhones.
Sprint would subsidize the cost of the iPhone by $500 in order to keep the price low; at current iPhone 4 prices, carriers pay Apple $655.73 for each unit. In other words, a subsidized Sprint iPhone 5 would cost around $150, $50 less than the $200 iPhone 4 devices from Verizon or AT&T.
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse also said Sprint won't break even until 2014, the Journal reports.
This is getting crazy. Or is it? See Could a Sprint iPhone Help Apple Battle Android? and Why Is There No Sprint iPhone? for more. PCMag will also be live-blogging tomorrow Apple's event so stay tuned for all the details.
Losing track of all the Apple iPhone 5 rumors? For more, see last week's top rumors as well as those from the week before and two weeks ago. Also check out What the iPhone 5 Might Look Like and Six Amazing Phone Technologies We Want in iPhone 5, as well as the 8 Likely iPhone 5 Rumors, and 2 Wild Ones slideshow below.