Phones require FCCA (or whoever it is) approval before they can be sold, and this takes 3 months, so it'll be announced 3 months before it goes on sale, I would guess, as (iThink) the FCCA approval process is fairly public-ish.

But the iPhone 3GS was announced and Steve Jobs said it was available "from today" IIRC.

Oh ok. Hmmmm. I may have the wrong end of the stick. I thought this was the primary reason for announcing the iPad plenty in advance. Maybe because the 3GS contained un-modified mobile-phone-gubbins compared to the 3G it didn't need re-approval? Or was the 3G available immediately? Actually, I know the 3G wasn't, as my boss at the time turned up to work at 11am, looking dead having slept outside in a folding chair all night.

I found the article!

There are some nice updates at the bottom. I hope they're all true!

Just seen a "picture" of the iPhone 4 on the Wired website.



I hope it is something similar to this. I like the mini iPad look of it

The angular edges are quite nice also.

I don't like the Windows Mobile home screen though

LOL

If that is a rough guide to what it looks like then I like it. I might actually get one this year if all goes well.

It looks like a Windows Mobile phone, running the htc Sense or the SPD front end...

Yeah, obviously it's just another guess (out of many).

I have a feeling the home screen won't change much from what it is now.

Aren't those the weather and calendar widgets You get with Mac OS scaled to fit in the mockup? Come think of it, there's no reason the iPhone 'home screen' couldn't just use Mac OS widgets given they're effectively just web views. Assuming they are designed to be small enough to fit in a given screen area, anyway.

Jon

Yes but the layout looks remarkably similar to...

It also looks fake.

No doubt, it 100% is fake.

If it is real then someone in Apple has lost their job.

It does look very nice though

It does. Though what will the actual one be like? We will have to wait and see.

Some interesting additions to be added into iPhone OS 4 - read MacWorld's text feed here

• Multi-tasking - at last!
• In-App SMS support
• Folders on the Home screen - drag an app onto another app's icon to create a folder for them. Useful for organising I guess.
• New Mail - threaded conversations, unified InBox, support for multiple email accounts, inc more than 1 Exchange.
• iBooks on the iPhone - expected really, but useful all the same - not just lifted from iPad, though, designed for small screen.
• Enterprise features
• Game Center (sic) - billed as a "Social Gaming Network" (?)
• iAd - Web advertising directly in apps. Hmm, not keen on this one - I hope developers use it responsibly.

I remember Apple getting a patent for "Web Advertising in the OS" last year, most people assumed it was for Mac OS X, not the iPhone OS. I can't say I'm pleased about this addition, I hope there's a way to turn this "feature" off.

iPhone OS 4 released sometime in the summer, but not on the iPad until the Autumn apparently.

Depending on the spec and price of the new handset, I may get one on PAYG and keep my Simplicity contract.