For the record, I don't agree with Sacco's conclusions. The iPhone 5 likely won't have ground-breaking advancements. Gadget geek Kyle Wiens of iFixit expects to see dual core and more RAM in the iPhone 5 but no significant improvements on the camera and Retina display. (See )

However, Wiens did take apart a Verizon iPhone 4 and found that Apple is using the same Qualcomm chip as the Droid Pro, or "world phone." This chipset supports both GSM and CDMA, which means that Apple could have supported GSM, he says. "This is a sign that Apple may be considering unifying the CDMA and GSM iPhones in the future."

That's good news for globetrotters. For the rest of us, it's not such a big deal.

But the timing of the Verizon iPhone 4 coming out only a few months from the expected iPhone 5 likely put off many potential buyers. Never mind that existing iPhone 4 owners on AT&T will only be a year into their two-year contracts by the time the iPhone 5 hits Apple stores. Chances are they'll be out of the iPhone 5 market, too.

All of this will be moot, of course, if Verizon reports huge numbers of iPhones sold this quarter. At least today, though, there's no doubt that AT&T execs are grinning.