Rumors have been circulating recently that Apple will release an updated iPhone – dubbed the “iPhone 4S” by an analyst last week – as soon as September with support for both Sprint and T-Mobile. The discovery of this job posing does little to quell the rumors, as the posting states the Carrier Engineer position will be located roughly 20 miles from Sprint’s offices in Overland Park.
The job listing was first reported by “Stop It, AT&T” although since the news has broken, Apple has mysteriously changed the location of the job back to Cupertino, California – the location of its HQ and development campus.
While it’s not out of the ordinary for Apple to hire engineers for iPhone development, the posting requires technical experience with many different cellular technologies, including CDMA. CDMA is used by Sprint, who operates the nation’s second largest network based on this particular technology. The Carrier Engineer position is also responsible for “day-to-day technical interactions with the one or more carriers to track down issues reported by the carrier,” which includes “working with program management, software development and test teams to get products approved by the carriers.” This is leading many to believe that the new products for approval will be headed to Sprint.
Once Apple and AT&T finished their exclusive deal and Apple launched the iPhone with Verizon, many speculated that the phone would be headed to Sprint, as they share similar technologies. Apple also made the point of mentioning that its iPhone deal with Verizon is non-exclusive, meaning they could launch on Sprint at any time.
Sprint has yet to comment on the rumors, and has offered no indication that they will be adopting the iPhone in the near future.
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