iPhone 5 set to bury Verizon customers' newfound inferiority complex

Ahead of the iPhone 5, Verizon customers should feel like they've won. They stood their ground, waited years for the iPhone to come to their preferred carrier, and finally got the notoriously stubborn Apple to give in and give them what they were demanding. It only took four generations. But instead, the Verizon iPhone 4 has managed to arrive in a manner which has left many Verizon customers feeling they're still waiting on champagne delays, or worse, developing an inferiority complex toward their existing iPhone 4-toting brethren.

The problems are easily identifiable enough: the "Verizon iPhone" happened in the middle of an iPhone generation and turned out to be nothing more than an eight month old iPhone 4 with some buttons shifted around and a Verizon-compatible antenna built in. Apple thought low enough of its prospects that it let Verizon handle the product introduction, something it never allows, and Apple even went on to run a TV ad insinuating that the two iPhone 4 flavors were exactly the same. Talk about a blueprint for getting Verizon customers to feel less than excellent about the idea of buying one: "Hey guys, it's literally last year's iPhone but now it's on your network. Enjoy!"

That inferiority complex isn't going away until something changes. And that change will of course come with the iPhone 5. It'll be the first iPhone to launch on both carriers at the same time. It'll be the first time Verizon customers get a shot at an iPhone model the same year in which it came into existence. And it'll bury the collective inferiority complex which has been brewing on the Verizon side of the fence among iPhone lusters, first because they didn't have access to it at all, and now because they're left wondering whether the Verizon iPhone 4 is the real thing. But give it til this summer, and the AT&T-Verizon iPhone 5 should finally have all iPhone users feeling like they have a true shot at equality – even though they technically have it now with the iPhone 4. It just doesn't feel that way. Here's more on the iPhone 5.