Source: 3G iPhone ‘On Schedule’ for June Introduction

     My trusty iPhone source has once again come through to provide clarity on the Apple iPhone roadmap. In the past week, several analysts have claimed that Apple has pushed 3G iPhone introduction a few months back. Concerns regarding hiccups in the 3G iPhone development voiced by various analysts and echoed by Apple fan sites prompted me to ask my insider about the validity of those claims. I was assured that as things stands now, Apple plans to make the 3G version available in June 2008 with a sneak preview of its software and hardware improvements due at Macworld 2008. Asked about hardware improvements, my source revealed that the top iPhone model will get 16GB of solid state memory and that production for the 8GB version is currently slated to continue although Apple is very concerned about flash memory pricing and availability in 2008. These concerns are potentially due to strains caused by yearly memory upgrade in the iPod lineup and a number of unannounced Apple products that may utilize these chips.

     There’s also been some confusion on whether the 3G iPhone can be considered the second generation iPhone or just an upgrade on the current model. My source explained that Apple updates its portable hardware on a yearly basis and from that perspective,  it can be considered a second gen product. However, the current iPhone platform is still used to tack on numerous software and hardware improvements.

D.S.