Verizon, the 2nd largest U.S. cell phone dealer, had the chance to be Steve Jobs’ new best friend, but passed. Why would such a stable, prospering company even hesitate when presented with one of Apple’s sure-to-be gold nuggets? Verizon likes to play fair, and Apple likes to be in control.

Jobs would let the iPhone be sold in Apple stores, and Verizon stores, but not in Verizon partnership stores such as Wal-Mart or Best Buy. This deal might sour Verizon’s other partners and make future business partnerships seem stale.

If a technical issue comes up with your iPhone, who would you call? Apple stores are few and far between, whereas distributors of Verizon or Cingular are nearly everywhere. Convenience itself would reason that one might hop on over to their local cell phone distributor and ask them a question about repairs. This is not what Apple wants, and it turned Verizon off even more. Apple wanted the sole discision over whether to replace or repair the phone.

“They would have been stepping in between us and our customers to the point where we would have almost had to take a back seat … on hardware and service support,” Jim Gerace, Verizon Vice President said.

With Verizon saying to Apple “No Thanks,” Steve Jobs and his cronies ran into the waiting arms of Cingular for an exclusive U.S. deal.

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