4G iPhone thanks to Sprint's Overdrive

The old saying is that "if you can't beat them, join them". Well, it seems that Sprint is doing just that. The company doesn't yet offer the iPhone but it's now featuring one in a new ad for its 4G Overdrive product.

In the ad Sprint shows how a friend with a 4G Overdrive "super charges" his buddy's iPhone. It takes just seconds for the friend to connect the iPhone to the Overdrive, and while the connection is happening, the Overdrive owner eats an Apple. The ad itself is pretty silly but it does get the point across that it's very easy to connect the iPhone to Sprint's 4G network to enjoy very fast data speeds.

I can't help but think that if the ad had featured an iPod touch connecting to the 4G network, it would have made an even greater point since there's no service contract required to get an iPod touch up and running. In that case, you'd just be paying for the Overdrive's connectivity. Of course, this ad is targeted towards people who aren't thinking about cost as much as they are about connection speed--at least Sprint hopes so anyway.

At any rate, we covered some rumors around Verizon's positioning of its own internet dongle to combat the 3G iPad, and mentioned at the time that Sprint was probably going to be doing something similar soon. In this case it looks like Sprint decided to take aim at the iPhone instead of the iPad.

Check out the Sprint ad showing the iPhone using its 4G network below: