Following Palm's path

Implications: 1. This strategy has been tried before (with success) by Palm 2. There are other factors at play: "creating value through scarcity" (selling to only one operator) one of the most relevant.

Analysis: When Palm entered the phone market with a convergent device (PDA and phone), it first did it with a GSM phone (the Treo 180). Even a CDMA phone was launched later the same year (2002), the whole product lineup was made up mostly of GSM phones. 

Some recent products (I remember the Treo 650) were initially available only on GSM versions.

It makes a lot of sense, when you have a novel and widely expected product to create critical mass and demonstrate demand before negotiating licence fees/chip prices with Qualcomm.

On the other hand, Apple is not in a rush to make the product available to all carriers. By negotiating an exclusive deal with AT&T, Apple had an unprecedented leverage to own the user experience beyond AT&T's control.