Yesterday, Emirates Telecommunications-Etisalat announced that it had struck a deal to bring the 3G iPhone to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia under the Mobily brand on February 15. While this is definitely interesting news, the slip of the tongue it caused on the part of Mark Davis, Program Director for the iPhone at Etisalat, is the real news.
After he spoke with Dow Jones, the publication released a report that contained this juicy fragment: “next version of the device, which is due out in June, will be launched in the UAE at the same time.”
Dow didn’t directly attribute the quote to Davis, but the context in which it is placed seems to indicate he did in fact say it.
This will definitely add fuel to the persistent rumor that Apple will be releasing it’s next-generation iPhone this June. In the most recent firmware update for the 3G iPhone, the notation “iPhone 2,1″ was embedded in the code. Given that the first and second generation iPhone’s were referred to as iPhone 1,1 and iPhone 1,2, the latest notation seems to suggest Apple is in the midst of testing something totally different.
Other rumors suggest that the third-generation iPhone will include Apple-developed System on Chip components with ARM processor cores (or Infineon’s 4G tranceiver) and PowerVR video and graphics cores developed by Apple investment Imagination Technologies.
via appleinsider
