The iPhone rumour mill is running at full throttle with the expectation that the company will announce an HSDPA-enabled version in June. But given Apple's long history of delays, meeting this schedule--albeit 12 months after the original U.S. launch of the iPhone, would be a risky punt.
However, what appears to be solid information is that the current iPhone baseband supplier Infineon will provide the HSDPA chipset--a story reinforced by the German company also planning to ramp down production of the EDGE baseband solution used in the current generation of the iPhone in order to clear inventories ahead of the 3G model.
At a more curious level UBS analyst Ben Reitzes speculated that these new iPhones would be offered by new international operators.
While it remains unclear what this might mean, Morgan Stanley offered the bizarre explanation that Steve Jobs' travel expenses could provide the answer. Apparently, Jobs spent US$550,000 on air travel--nearly three times more than the average spent over the past year and a half. Morgan Stanley claims that this was the need for Jobs' integral involvement with operators in Asia and Europe vying to secure iPhone contracts.
For more on this story:
- read The Times and Apple Insider