tl;dr

As I half suspected might happen, some clever people have torn the developer’s beta of the v3.0 iPhone OS to bits looking for clues as to upcoming Apple Stuff. And assuming Apple aren’t just putting this in there to yank our chains, they’ve found something pretty cool.

One of the files inside the ROM image itself is a file which holds USB configuration information for all the different models that firmware supports. For a long time, this file had four entries:

iPhone1,1  – 0×1290 (the first gen iPhone)
iPod1,1 – 0×1291 (the first gen iPod Touch)
iPhone1,2 – 0×1292 (the iPhone 3G)
iPod2,1 – 0×1293 (the second gen iPod Touch)

Note the strictly sequential ID attached to each model. V2.2 of the iPhone software brought a new one:

iPhone2,1 – 0×1294

and as I mentioned in my previous article, this ties into some evidence from an analytics firm dating back to Oct 2008 that it may be a prototype of a third iPhone model.

In the new v3.0 firmware  Boy Genius Report found several new versions:

iProd0,1 – 0×1295
iPod2,2 – 0×1296
iPhone3,1 – 0×1297
iFPGA – 0×1298
iPod3,1 – 0×1299

Analysis of these from Ars.Technica:

The iPhone3,1 and iPod3,1 are clearly references to next-gen hardware version of those products (perhaps Apple is skipping iPhone2,1?). Smith suggests that the iFPGA could be a prototype device that uses field-programmable gate arrays, a type of programmable microchip. It doesn’t conform to the standard numbering scheme that Apple uses for its hardware products, so it isn’t likely something intended to be released. The “iProd,” on the other hand, uses a 0,1 number, suggesting it is a prototype of an as-yet unreleased device that is neither an iPhone nor an iPod touch.

The use of FPGA in this context is puzzling, because it’s hard to see what they would be using FPGA chips for, even in an iPhone prototype. It also doesn’t have even a beta-grade “0,1″ model number. This one is a bit of a puzzler. We shouldn’t rule out Apple doing this on purpose to wind the bloggers up, either.

Meanwhile, some rumour sites are claiming the “iProd” could be a personal trainer type device, something Apple claimed a patent on last year: a device which tracks your workouts and actively moans (or “prods”) at you if you miss a session. The Nike+ shows that there is rich ground in the iPod/exercise cross-over market, but just because Apple have a patent doesn’t mean they will make an entire product for this. It seems more likely to me that it would be a physical add-on to an existing iPod Touch and an application to go with it. There’s also no way I could see Apple using such a lame, punnish name; it’s more likely to just stand for “Product” and be something that doesn’t have a proper name yet.

There’s more “new iPhone stuff” from elsewhere too. Here in the UK O2 have cut the cost of getting an iPhone, albeit only on the 24-month contract option. It’s difficult to see this as anything other than a modest stock clearing measure ahead of a new model, and it bears emphasising that committing to a two year contract when there is a new model around the corner is probably not a good move.

Finally, to finish off this roundup, AppleInsider claims to have a source saying the iPhone will have video recording capability, which may be supported by this screenshot at Engadget which shows an option called “publish video” in the v3.0 OS. And BusinessInsider claims the new iPhone may support faster internet speeds, probably through a newer 3G chipset with support for some faster variants of the technology. These two rumours, I would suggest, fall into the “likely to be true” category.

My standing advice to anyone thinking of buying an Phone 3G remains the same: wait a few months and see what happens.

Tech, iPhone