Verizon iPad (not Phone) Coming This Month, Kind Of

Well, who’d thunk it? After months–years even–of Verizon iPhone banter, a Verizon iPad swoops in out of nowhere and beats the Verizon iPhone to the market. Well a Verizon iPad package, anyway.

Verizon announced today that it will begin offering iPad packages at its retail stores later this month. Set to launch on October 28 at 2,000 Verizon stores nationwide, the iPads will be offered in bundles with Verizon’s MiFi 2200 hotspot. So we’re looking at Wi-Fi-only models, not 3G models. Verizon will also sell Wi-Fi models without Mi-Fi hotspots.

The three packages Verizon offers will be a $629.99 iPad 16GB + MiFi package, a $729.99 iPad 32GB + MiFi package and an $829.99 iPad Wi-Fi 64GB + MiFi package. That’s a $130 premium over the standard iPad Wi-Fi models, putting them at the same price as the iPad 3G models that offer AT&T service.

As far as coverage, Verizon will charge $20/month for 1 GB of data, which falls right in between AT&T’s 250 GB/$15 and 2 GB/$25 packages.  So you basically get an iPad that works comparably to the AT&T 3G version, only with an extra piece of hardware to lug around. It’s basically a cheat version so that Verizon can get into the iPad market. Big news for Apple and Verizon, not that big of news for consumers.

I suppose this will appeal to those that are sick of AT&T or who routinely use more than 250 MB of data but no more than 1 GB, but it’s still not really a Verizon iPad. But now that this partnership is complete, we expect to see a CDMA iPad (and probably iPhone) next year. [via Apple]