Verizon Wireless on Thursday confirmed that its next Apple device will be a world phone. The company reported a solid first quarter on Thursday morning, noting that it had activated 2.2 million iPhones, and Verizon’s CFO, Fran Shammo, revealed during a conference call that Apple’s next iPhone will be a “global” phone. Look, it’s not like we weren’t expecting it — many assumed the first CDMA iPhone to support GSM roaming, and Apple is already using a world-mode Qualcomm chip in the current model. It was pretty much a given that Verizon Wireless iPhone users will be able to roam across the globe to their heart’s content, but it’s always nice to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Whether Apple will have just one iPhone 5 model for both GSM and CDMA networks is still unknown, though knowing Apple, the company is most likely doing everything it can to make that happen.

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One of our solid Apple sources has just let us know some pretty interesting (and exciting) information surrounding Apple’s upcoming iPhone devices. For starters, we have been told that iPhone model 3,2 — what everyone is assuming to be the Verizon (or at least CDMA-compatible) phone — just hit the “AP” testing stage. This is the very last stage before retail release; final hardware, almost final software. Here is the odd thing, though… the iPhone 3,2 unit, we have been exclusively told, contains a SIM card slot. This is interesting for a multitude of reasons, and presents several different scenarios:

• The iPhone 3,2 could be the mythical CDMA + GSM/HSPA device that would support Verizon, AT&T, and the other current worldwide iPhone 4 carriers frequencies. The mid-cycle refresh would bring an updated antenna design for the current iPhone 4 and bring CDMA-compatibility; essentially, Verizon Wireless subscribers would have the same device as AT&T subscribers.
• The iPhone 3,2 could be a CDMA-capable iPhone that houses a SIM card for global roaming capabilities; though that certainly seems more complicated than just having one single glove that would fit both hands.
• One last possibility that the iPhone model 3,2 would simply be a slightly different design that doesn’t suffer from the same antenna attenuation as the current model; though that would be a little disappointing.

As far as the next generation iPhone 5, our source has also indicated to us that device has hit the “EVT” stage in the development cycle. The “EVT” stage is the engineering verification test phase, before the “DVT” phase.

We know how hard it must be for Sprint BlackBerry users considering that Sprint missed out on recent handsets like the Storm and Bold. Sprint hasn’t even issued OS 4.5 yet but as the saying goes, “good things come to those who wait.” If you believe this latest rumor, a very good thing is on its way to the black and yellow land of Sprint — the Niagara. A CDMA variant of the Bold with updated looks to compliment the styling queues of the 8900 and Storm, the Niagara features all of the goodies one could hope for: full-QWERTY keypad, 480 x 360 display, EV-DO Rev. A, aGPS, WiFi and a 3.2 megapixel camera. We even hear that there might be HSPA world-roaming (wouldn’t that be swell?). If the rumor pans out, it would certainly give Sprint a much needed shot in the arm. But then again, Verizon would probably just come in after a short period of time and wreck the party.

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