The Verge reports on an article from Japanese business newspaper Nikkei claiming that the country's third largest carrier, SoftBank, is close to acquiring U.S. carrier and iPhone partner Sprint Nextel. The report indicates that SoftBank is looking to acquire at least a two-thirds share of Sprint in a deal that would exceed ¥1.5 trillion ($19.2 billion).
The Wall Street Journal follows up with its own claims along the same lines, although it pegs the purchase price at over ¥1 trillion ($12.81 billion).
Sprint executives have said they want to participate in the industry's consolidation. The approach from Softbank comes as Sprint is making progress stitching together its various network technologies and stemming declines in its revenue and subscriber base following a 2005 merger with Nextel.
The deal would mark a massive gamble by Softbank, the country's third-largest carrier by subscribers, to expand its business outside of Japan. Softbank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son has made big bets in the past, including acquiring the Japanese arm of Vodafone Group in 2006. It paid for the deal through a leveraged buyout, which vaulted the company in the mobile-phone business.
The U.S. mobile carrier industry has been looking at significant consolidation in recent years, particularly at the top of the market as Verizon and AT&T have jockeyed for the top spot and Sprint and T-Mobile USA have sought to gain ground on the two leaders. Following the failed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile last year, T-Mobile just last week announced that it would merge with MetroPCS, the country's fifth-largest carrier, although Sprint was rumored to also be considering making a bid.
Sprint became the third of the four major U.S. carriers to offer the iPhone upon the release of the iPhone 4S in October 2011, with company executives moving to "bet the company" on the iPhone in committing to purchase more than 30 million iPhones worth $20 billion over the first four years of the partnership. The move has impacted Sprint's financials over the short-term, but the carrier believes that the long-term effects of having the iPhone will be positive.
iOS 19 will not be available on the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or the iPhone XS Max, according a private account on social media site X that has accurately provided information on device compatibility in the past.
The iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max all have an A12 Bionic chip, so it looks like iOS 19 will discontinue support for that chip. All other iPhones that run iOS 18 are expected...
Apple today released watchOS 11.4, the fourth major update to the operating system that runs on the Apple Watch. watchOS 11.4 is compatible with the Apple Watch Series 6 and later, all Apple Watch Ultra models, and the Apple Watch SE 2.
watchOS 11.4 can be downloaded on a connected iPhone by opening up the Apple Watch app and going to General > Software Update. To install the new software,...
Apple today released new firmware updates for all AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 models. The new firmware is version 7E93, up from the 7B21 firmware that was installed on the AirPods Pro 2 and the 7B20 firmware available on the AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with ANC.
It is not immediately clear what new features or changes are included in the new firmware, but we'll update this article should we find ...
Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates that came out last year. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 come two months after Apple released iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to...
Visa wants to pay Apple approximately $100 million to be the new payment network for the Apple Card, reports The Wall Street Journal. As of right now, the Apple Card is on the Mastercard payment network, but that is set to change because Apple is ending its partnership with Goldman Sachs.
Both American Express and Visa are vying to replace Mastercard as Apple's card services provider, while...
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Wednesday April 2, 2025 10:11 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today seeded the first betas of upcoming iOS 18.5 and iPadOS 18.5 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming just two days after Apple released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4.
iOS 18.5 and iPadOS 18.5 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update.
We don't yet know what Apple is introducing in the iOS 18.5...
And thus continues the selling out of our nation to foreign countries.
Not happy to see this. Soon the rest of the world will own us, if not already.
Yeah, because no American company has ever purchased their way into a foreign market...
Ever since the bomb, Japan and the US are so tied together that this sort of thing no longer really matters. Both countries are leading innovators with technology. It's like two people getting into a fight and then becoming best friends after...well, if you take the bomb part out of the story.
