It didn't take long for resourceful developers to already find clues hinting at Apple's future hardware plans for the iPhone and iPod Touch
Even though the new iPhone OS 3.0 beta was just released 3 days ago, it didn’t take long for resourceful developers to already find clues hinting at Apple’s future hardware plans for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Recently un-earthed data strings inside the new iPhone 3.0 firmware suggests that Apple might have new iPhone and iPod Touch models already in the pipeline. The relevant strings make reference to “iPhone 2,1”, “iPhone 3, 1”, and “iPod 3,1”. The strings might seem cryptic, but they’re really a straight forward numbering system Apple uses internally to refer to various hardware models of its devices. When Apple makes a significant hardware upgrade, the first number in the string increases. Relatively minor hardware upgrades result in the second number in the string increasing. As an illustration, the first iPhone model is referred to as “1,1” and when Apple introduced a relatively small hardware upgrade in the form of the iPhone 3G (with 3G and GPS), it was referred to as “1,2”. From there, we can only assume that the presence of the “iPhone 2,1” and “3,1” strings suggest that there are some significant hardware upgrades in the works for the iPhone. Indeed, many are speculating that the latest and greatest iPhone model will debut sometime this June. While details about what Apple might include in its next iteration of the iPhone are scarce, it’s widely assumed that faster processors and more advanced graphics capabilities will be part of the equation. As for the iPod Touch, the first model released was referred to as “1,1”, while the second model was referenced as “2,1”. So as is the case with the iPhone, the “iPod 3,1” string suggests that Apple is already working on a significant hardware revision to its flagship iPod. Might it be a mythical iPod Touch HD? There is, of course, no way to know when these hardware revisions will actually be introduced in the form of a tangible and shipping product, but it seems apparent that whatever or whenever those upgrades might be, they’re already supported by the new iPhone OS 3.0. Like this post? Check out these others from iOnApple
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