The article quotes CIBC World Markets analyst Ittai Kidron, who last week wrote that: “Based on our checks, we believe the timing of Apple's iPhone commercial launch is around late first quarter 2007 to early second quarter 2007."

This is despite much speculation the Apple has placed an order for 12 million iPhones with a Taiwanese manufacturer, with two models thought to be in development.

Whether Apple releases an iPhone or not won’t affect existing iPod sales too much in the short term – the iPod itself is still a fantastic music player and most people already own a mobile phone.

Apple fans seem quite happy to buy new iPods whenever they are launched – I myself am a great example. While I already owned an iPod Nano 1st-generation, I immediately snapped up a 2nd-generation model as soon as they were available to buy.

I already have several mobile phones that can play mp3s, but I don’t use any of them for that purpose. Why? I already have an iPod. Of course, I am very keen to see what Apple’s iPhone will look like and how it will compare to other mp3 phones out there, particularly Sony Ericsson’s very popular Walkman branded phones and Nokia’s N series of multimedia phones that also play mp3’s very well.

But if there’s no iPhone, it won’t be the end of the world. It’ll likely be expensive, and won’t do anything more than most users already have at their disposal – making phone calls and listening to music.

What’s also unknown is if Apple will release a 2G phone, with GPRS and EDGE data support, or a 3G or even 3.5G phone that downloads data at much faster rates than 2G phones while also sucking up more battery life.

To that end, rumours have reported that Apple is considering including two batteries in any upcoming iPhone – one for music and the other for the phone.

Whether Apple can pull that off and still have a device that’s small, slim, sleek and sophisticated is unknown, but we do live in hope that if anyone can pull this feat of engineering off, it’s Apple.

So, don’t fret. Either way, an Apple iPhone is clearly coming soon. It might just end up being a surprise during 2007 in more ways than one!
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