No sooner do Verizon and Apple put to rest the question of, "When is the iPhone coming to Verizon?" than the questions began, "Should I switch now or wait until the next iPhone?" At first, I thought if you are on Verizon, happy with your current phone and could wait, you should go ahead and wait until the summer when you could get the iPhone 5 or whatever it will be called. Taking into account Verizon's upgrade policy, however, plus the projected roadmap for the iPhone, I have to revise this earlier thought and recommend Verizon customers get the iPhone 4 now if they can.
If you read our Verizon iPhone Roadmap, you know that we don't expect the iPhone on Verizon to be 4G LTE -capable until the summer 2012. That's a full 16-17 months after the launch of the iPhone 4 on Verizon and only 12 months after the launch of the iPhone 5 this summer. Also take into account the story from Android Central that Verizon is changing its upgrade policy from 12 months to 20 months. This story was confirmed by the Wall Street Journal yesterday, meaning that customers will not be eligible for new phones before 20 months go by (an eternity in the mobile space).
While the iPhone 5 will certainly be a better phone, I would imagine that the more significant jump will be the following year when it can finally take advantage of Verizon and AT&T's 4G LTE networks. If my upgrade policy meant I couldn't upgrade before 20 months, I'd much rather be on a cycle with the iPhone 4 now and an upgrade close to the launch of the LTE iPhone. If Verizon customers get their iPhone this summer, they won't be eligible for the LTE iPhone until well after the LTE iPhone launch in Summer 2012. All of that is also not taking into consideration months between now and June/July when people can use their Verizon iPhones. Knowing that Apple releases iPhones every year can be a useful tool, but it's also useful to plan beyond just the current launch. In this case, it's not worth it to wait.