Verizon making iPhone announcement next week?

The Verizon announcement everyone has been waiting for is happening. [Link]

Well, here we are: the Wall Street Journal says Verizon will indeed announce the iPhone at its mysterious Tuesday event, according to "a source familiar with the matter." That's all the info the Journal has, but we'd say that all but seals it at this point -- and you know we'll be there live when it happens.

P.S. And just like that, Apple's managed to once again be one of the biggest stories at CES with zero presence here. That's what, five years in a row now?

Here's why Verizon is doing the announcing and not Apple. [Link]

So why is next Tuesday’s announcement of the Verizon iPhone a Verizon-hosted event in New York and not an Apple-hosted event in Cupertino? Here’s my theory. Apple is fully aware that when they say “We’re having an event next week” that people expect big news and a new product. If they were hosting this event, speculation would be rampant that it would involve a new iPad and maybe an iPhone 5, in addition to the expected Verizon deal. There is no new Apple product, though. We nerds know that a CDMA iPhone 4 is a different device than the GSM iPhone 4, but from a consumer perspective, it’s the same phone but just works on a different carrier. What would Apple show? What would there be to demo?