iPhone 5 a World Phone with GSM/CDMA spills Verizon

Red faces and angry Apple phone calls this morning, as one of Verizon's executives apparently confirms that the carrier's next Apple device – which we're presuming will be the iPhone 5 – will be a "global device" with both GSM and CDMA radios. The presumably accidental revelation came during the carrier's financial results call, in which Verizon promised that around 11m iPhones would ship on the network this year.

Previous rumors had pegged the iPhone 4 as a dual-mode device, capable of accessing both AT&T and Verizon's networks with a single handset, but the model eventually released only had the CDMA radio enabled. Rumors shifted to the iPhone 5, then, and the possibility of Apple using a Qualcomm Gobi chips in its fifth-gen model.

Verizon's audio download and transcript aren't available yet – they'll be uploaded here eventually – but we're guessing the calls between the carrier and Apple are already heated. Recent rumors suggested the iPhone 5 would arrive in September, with an 8-megapixel camera and the dual-core 1GHz Apple A5 processor from the iPad 2.

[via Electronista]