Meet Apple's NEW Surprise for next Month

The new iphone

There’s a pile of evidence in the blogosphere suggesting Apple will release a lackluster upgrade for its popular iPhone. Likely features include a digital compass, processor and memory upgrades, an improved digital camera with auto-focus and video-recording capabilities, and other minor improvements.

These hardware enhancements don’t add up to much. Instead, Apple seems to be training most of its focus on the previously-announced iPhone 3.0 — a major upgrade to the operating system that will add in-app commerce, tethering, live streaming, the ability to integrate apps with external accessories and push notification, along with a variety of other features such as cut-and-paste.

We’re confident that Apple will introduce an iPhone upgrade at WWDC — it would be a perfectly logical move because Apple announced the current iPhone 3G at WWDC 2008. Also, it would be ideal for Apple to unveil the iPhone at the event so it can hold WWDC sessions on any new hardware APIs (the rumored digital compass, for example).

The latest iPhone-related rumor involves Apple adding a 4-GB model to the line. We’re skeptical about this, because Apple already killed the 4-GB model introduced with the original iPhone just two months after its release in June 2007. Would many people buy one, even if it only costs $100?

It’s more likely that Apple will add a 32-GB model to the iPhone family, because that’d be the next step up from the current 8-GB and 16-GB models.