Boy Genius‘ ninjas — Canuck chapter — have gotten their tiger-clawed hands on what looks to be Fido Canada’s 2009 roadmap. Fido, which was bought by Rogers and is now marketed as the budget-conscious GSM brand, carries the iPhone 3G, and if this leak is correct, just might next be carrying:
a 4GB iPhone model that will run for $99 and come with quad-band EDGE, tri-band HSDPA, a 2 megapixel shooter and, believe it or not, iChat video calling
The Rogers/Fido network might support video iChat better than AT&T’s but we can’t see Apple making something as huge as that without doing it global, much less on bigger devices than 4GB…
What do you think, is it real, or is it fakaroid?
[Via Jeffdc5]
This is not a drill! We finally have someone, likely with no actual knowledge of the engineering or design of the next gen iPhone, going on record as saying:
his sources indicate Apple is readying a new iPhone that will ship in June with an upgraded camera that could deliver big improvements to the iPhone experiences, including both still and video capabilities “with possibly another camera on the front for video chat.”
iChat on the iPhone has been a perennial favorite among rumormeisters before every new launch, real and imagined, just like iPhone nano speculation. Speaking of which…
Apple Insider’s coverage of Barclay’s Capital analyst Ben Reitzes’ predictions doesn’t stop there, of course, as we also get the prerequisite low end iPhone nano-ized rumors, the high end video iPhone Pro rumors.
Some of these are logical inferences, some are wishful thinking. We’re thinking — why let analysts have all the fun? What are you wishing for? Do we want Mobile iChat video? Could AT&T even support it in iPhone numbers? And if Apple isn’t going to fracture the platform with different screen sizes, are features a realistic way to differentiate their offerings?
No, nothing new here. Same story we’ve heard off and on for almost a year now, typically from Kevin Rose. But the internets are all a twitter about it, so for completeness’ sake, here’s the story again from CrunchGear, augmented with the recent iPhone patent grants:
Apparently video recording is mentioned frequently throughout the entire document but a few images and sections explain a video conferencing capable phone.
Yet they, like us, remain cautiously optimistic at best. After all, Apple files tons of patents, is granted quite a few, but only ever ships a very small subset.
Still… I wants it for my iPhone HD. How about you?
