Insane Rumor: Apple "Working" on "Second" "iPhone"

I love technology analysts and the tales they tell about Apple. The company doesn't show its preliminary products to anyone, least of all people who are likely to go talk about it in the media in detail.

But plenty in the media do pay attention to what analysts have to say about unannounced Apple products, which is why the Internet has been abuzz today with rumors that Apple is already at work on – hold your breath now – the SECOND iPhone. While the first is still but a twinkle in the eye of a Foxconn executive's eye, the rumor crowd is already over the yet-to-be-confirmed-as-existing initial iPhone. They want to know how Apple can follow on its unrealized success.

Well, son, take a seat. Shaw Wu of American Technology Research had quite a story to spin to eWeek on just such a subject:

"Time to market is not certain to us as it appears to be in the development phase," Wu wrote in his Nov. 20 research paper. "We believe this product is [Apple's] 'smart phone' and could be branded as 'iChat mobile.'"

Wait, is he really following up on that? Haven't we played the iChat mobile game before, oh, three months ago. Yes, as a matter of fact, we have.

Here's the thing: I want to believe in the iPhone, really I do. And Apple has refreshed every single one of its product lines this year at least once since August. That means they're running out of new products to hold back for MacWorld San Francisco, which is six weeks away. Something will be announced there alongside the iTV. But will it be the iPhone or just a 15" MacBook? It all seems so plausible, and then I read something like this and lose faith, despite hearing from a guy I met on Saturday who knows a guy who knows a guy at Cingular who totally saw the iPhone on a desk, and...

Anyway. I know one thing. It won't be the second-generation iPhone or the 11th-generation Newton. Sorry, analysts.

Analyst: Second iPhone in the Works [eWeek]
Via Macsurfer.