Apple is reportedly testing a version of the iPhone with CDMA chips.
At least that's what Daring Fireball's John Gruber says. He cites "a few little birdies" when reporting late Wednesday that the prototype in testing is codenamed "N92."
N92 is "certainly not in production," but is currently at the engineering verification test level, or EVT, according to Gruber. That's one level below DVT, or device verification test. And that is itself a level below an actual product currently being manufactured.
Now, as we know, Verizon operates a CDMA network. Does this mean a Verizon iPhone is imminent? As has been the case for the past few years, and despite multiple reports, it's still very unclear. Gruber acknowledges that in his own blog post.
"That doesn't make it a sure thing. It is essential to reiterate that for all I know, it is coming to market but has nothing to do with Verizon. GSM is more popular worldwide, but Verizon is not the only major CDMA carrier in the world," he writes.
That's essentially what my colleague Kent German wrote earlier this week. Besides, Verizon, Sprint, U.S. Cellular, China Telecom, and others have boatloads of CDMA customers it could funnel to Apple and its smartphone.
So here we are again, with a few clues of something that could be or could not be an iPhone for Verizon. And because Apple is still good at keeping secrets, we're still not any closer to knowing for sure.