Iphone rumours abound

THERE ARE masses of Iphone rumours doing the rounds ahead of the much predicted announcement of the 3G version of the Iphone today @ the Apple developers forum thingey in California.

The central theme, however, is that Apple has recognised it needs to play the game in developed markets and allow the mobile operators to subsidise the phones.

One school of thought has it that Apple wants the price for a subsidised Iphone to be around the same sort of level as a Crackberry from RIM, which means sub-$200 compared to the original $400 that early Apple aficionados were forced to pay.

Others say that operators like O2 will be able to offer it for free to their existing big-spending contract customers.

Several observers are wetting their knickers at the thought of a pre-paid version of the Iphone as anew move but the INQ swears that this was actually possible with AT&T if you asked the right questions and failed the credit checks.

In terms of extended capabilities inside the new Iphone – besides 3G obviously – some romourmeisters are saying that the handset will be optimised for mobile TV.

The INQ, however, favours the suggestion that it will have a GPS facility built in. Let's hope it's a better implementation than Nokia's with the N95 which is still incredibly slow.

There's also talk of increased security to stop unlocking. That will never work when there's a whole industry grown up around supplying 'unlocked' and 'jailbroken' Iphones.

All of these moves are designed to help Apple hit its 10 million unit sales target. This should have been achieved within 12 months of the original release date but appears to have slipped back to 10 million during 2008.

Sources say it has shifted 5.4 million Iphones to date. The INQ, however, still argues that Apple hasn't quite got its head around the mobile handset market, which is incredibly cyclical.

What Apple needs to do is launch a fab version of the Iphone in October, just in time for the Xmas spending spree. Not in June for a July shipping date when most people are saving for their holidays.

Still, the Duke of Cupertino is still managing to freak out the existing handset market leaders with his antics. Which can't be a bad thing. µ