Apple spells out Verizon, AT&T iPhone differences

From InfoWorld: We already know that the CDMA (Verizon) and GSM (AT&T and international) iPhones are ever-so-slightly different physically and internally -- but just how different are the two iPhones in terms of actual, real-world usage?

On Wednesday, Apple published a new support document with the catchy headline iPhone: Understanding phone features. As it turns out, various rather mundane phone features work differently, depending on whether you’re using a GSM iPhone or a CDMA one.

GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) are two competing cellular network standards. In the U.S. both Verizon and Sprint largely use CDMA-based networks, with AT&T and T-Mobile using GSM. Internationally, GSM is far more commonplace, with CDMA used prominently in only a handful of countries.

Because of the two different network protocols, some calling features are toggled differently on the two phones. On a GSM iPhone, to turn Call Forwarding, Call Waiting, and Caller ID on or off, you launch the Settings app, tap Phone, and then adjust the appropriate control. Changing those same settings on a CDMA phone, however, requires dialing special codes -- *72, *70, and *67, respectively. And for disabling Call Waiting or (outgoing) Caller ID, you need to dial those unique codes every single time you place a call.

Apple’s new document also highlights differences between how the two phones handle conference calls. GSM iPhones can support up to five simultaneous calls, while CDMA iPhones top out at two simultaneous calls. The document also directs CDMA iPhone owners to the iPhone User Guide, which spells out more limitations in CDMA’s implementation of conference calls: you can’t merge calls if the second call is incoming, and you can’t switch between calls if the second call was outgoing -- though you can, in that case, merge the calls. And on CDMA iPhones, if you end the second call or the merged call, both calls are terminated. These conference call limitations are endemic to all Verizon CDMA phones, not just the iPhone.

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