A French web site, Nowhere Else, has new photos of what it claims is the new iPhone, which is expected to be announced as the WWDC on Monday.  The photos are in line with some rumors we’ve been hearing, including the lack of a metal band around the edge of the screen, a matte black backpiece, and (perhaps) a front-facing camera. 

Some expect Apple to announce multiple iPhones rather than one; there may be a $99 model with less storage and missing features.

No one knows exactly what the new iPhone will be, of course (we made predictions a while back and there are plenty more on the Web), but we don’t expect the new device to be a radical departure from the current generation.  Faster processor, more memory, better camera – that sort of thing.  Mundane or not, we welcome these upgrades.

But, whatever the future holds, it isn’t far off. 

via EngadgetMobile

Apple has placed a huge order for NAND flash memory chips, presumably for their upcoming iPhone release (or releases) this summer.  The authors of the DigiTimes story state that Apple has ordered over 100 million 8Gb (gigabit) chips, largely from Samsung, a quantity that represents a rough doubling of the number of chips ordered by the company this time last year.

We’ve known that at least one new iPhone model was coming this summer for months, and one of the most obvious areas for enhancement for such a device would be storage capacity.  Could the new iPhone come in 16GB and 32GB capacities like the 2G iPod touch?  Could a 64GB model be on the way?  We’ll have to wait and see.

One thing is certain: this massive order will limit the flash memory supply for some time, perhaps as late as June.

Users won’t be able to get their hands on v3.0 of the iPhone OS until the summer, but Apple will unveil the newest version of its mobile OS during a media event scheduled for 12:00PM CDT tomorrow.

Apple is calling this an advance preview (redundant?), but hasn’t said much about what’s coming; that hasn’t stopped the speculation, of course, and predictions are flying about what users can expect.

Topping the list of possible features is Push Notification Server support, a capability long-promised by Apple but as yet unavailable. Because the iPhone doesn’t run third-party programs in the background, this would allow apps to be sent notifications when new data is available. For example, a third-party messaging app could alert you of a new incoming IM even if that messaging application isn’t running at the time.

Other predictions include Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), copy-and-paste, stereo Bluetooth headphone support, tethering (this is the ability to use the iPhone as a wireless modem over USB or Bluetooth; if true this feature will almost certainly require a monthly fee from AT&T), and even voice recognition.

We’ll post full details tomorrow during the announcement.