Serious hints at the next generation iPhone emerge (UPDATEx2)

UPDATEX2: It appears that the latest iPhone Firmware beta 3 also brings the ability to save pictures from web pages on Safari into the iPhone's photo library.

UPDATE: Nike has confirmed Apple is adding support for its Nike+ technology on the iPhone and the iPod touch.

Many rumours emerged on the Internet regarding the iPhone in the recent days. They're mainly based on the latest iPhone SDK Firmware build. Here's a quick summary.

Apple has posted a beta 3 of its iPhone firmware 2.0 to developers last Tuesday. This beta version includes a few new features that weren't mentioned during early March's iPhone SDK special event:

- Contacts search
- Contact springboard icon
- Better invites management
- Safari Youtube plug-in (can play videos in H264 format right on the web)

In addition, Ziphone.org, which provides Jailbreak tool for the iPhone and the iPod touch, looked inside the v2 firmware's code and also found references of a new 3G chip by Infineon labelled "SGOLD3", which could be used in the 3G iPhone. Apple curently uses Infineon's SGOLD2 chip.

The SGOLD3 Infineon chip is capable of 3.5G (7Mbits) connectivity, can drive a 5Mpixel camera and can do video-conferencing. Of course, Apple is free to choose which features it's going to use and which it will not.

Other hackers found references to several other possible features of the 3G iPhone:
- A2DP Bluetooth support indicating wireless stereo audio streaming capabilities,
- "Role GPS" tag which could refer to GPS module support on the iPhone but it remains unknown whether it's for an internal chip or for third-party accessoires
- "Nike+", which clearly refers to Nike's sport monitoring feature already present on the iPod lineup,
- Better unlocking prevention.

As if that wasn't enough, TGDaily claims to have obtained information on the next iPhone lineup and says that there will be at least two models with the same capacity as the current lineup, or 8GB and 16GB. The design of these new models will be slightly thinner and will have less plastics. A 32GB iPhone model as well as a 64GB iPod touch are also mentioned but with less certainty.

Meanwhile, everybody seems to expect the 3G iPhone to arrive in June, especially since first current iPhone model shortage reports broke, with probably an announcement during WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) and availability for the first anniversary since the first model's release, or June 30.