they wanted to deal with apple and sell their own souls to be able to sell the phone, they suffer the consecuences. this is what happens when big companies get overconfident enough to make the deal with the the one company that would no sooner screw over their customers in a court than theyd renegotiate anything.
if apple is in any way half smart, they would waver this contractual agreement and negotiate another deal with verizon. if apple were to pursue the owed money, theyd be down one major carrier and the stocks would have the biggest plummet theyve ever seen. verizon would have troubles with this debt and apple would take them to court, all the while investors start going ape shit because sales keep falling and apple is too preoccupied with screwing over theyre major customer in court to care.
I dont really like verizon, but I wouldnt want them to go down(with all those thousands of USA jobs they carry). apple would do good in not playing the bad guy in this situation. and verizon would do good in tuning down the cockiness.