[protomyth]

That's a very odd number for North Dakota given that AT&T didn't sell the iPhone for a long time while Verizon sold Android devices.

[zdw]

This. Carriers would distort any phone-based metrics in the US, as there are certain areas of the country where AT&T isn't available, and thus had minimal iPhone market penetration until the 4 came out on Verizon.

[mproud]

AT&T didn’t have much for rural coverage in northern Minnesota and many parts of North Dakota, but got much better with the purchase of Cellular One (no surprise; add needed towers, get reception, get users).

However, that acquisition was a while ago. I’m sure nothing is overnight. Still, not much is truly revealed about these numbers. This article still leaves me unsatisfied.

[protomyth]

AT&T also ticked off a lot of people during the switch by double billing them and cutting off others. Lot of switching to Verizon and Walmart.

[rdouble]

My anecdote from growing up in that area is that North Dakotans kept buying dumbphones until the iPhone was available.

[protomyth]

Thinking about it, that's about right except Blackberry was pretty popular since people liked it for texting.

[VLM]

Good observation, correction for coverage maps is a good idea. Another correction which might be relevant on a smaller-than-state scale would be distance from nearest apple iStore.