Will Apple Not Just Announce, But Ship the New iPhone on Monday?
Apple is going to announce a new iPhone, now thought to be called the iPhone Video, on Monday at WWDC. That's no surprise. However, the latest rumor, or should I say opinion, is that not only will Apple announce the new iPhone (or perhaps more than one), it will release it for sale as well.
MacChat: Apple set to polish iPhone, OS X

IT’S the last great Apple show. With the tech giant pulling the pin on Macworld Expo, first in New York and then San Francisco, Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference has become the only annual gathering the company attends.

The conference, in San Francisco this week, has had a dramatic change of face in the past couple of years with the rise of the iPhone and iPod touch platform.

While WWDC has traditionally been a Mac affair, the number of iPhone and iPod touch developers now rivals that of Mac developers. What can we expect? Let’s rate the possibilities ...

Certainty: The two new operating systems, OS X Snow Leopard and OS X iPhone 3.0, will be detailed, and the latter may also be released. We’ve already seen previews of both, with Snow Leopard offering mainly under-the-hood changes but also some nice cosmetic touches, and OS X iPhone delivering background processes, MMS, cut and paste and other enhancements for developers, such as sales from within apps. Snow Leopard will probably be released later in the year, going head-to-head with Microsoft’s Windows 7.

Probability: As has become customary the past two WWDCs, a new iPhone could be released. Evidence has come to light that iPhone v3 will boast a storage capacity up to 32GB, and the new iPhone will probably also have an improved camera. There has been speculation of video recording and editing capabilities and a magnetometer. The iPhone v3 will also take full advantage of the new iPhone 3.0 software.

Possibility: Apple’s enigmatic CEO Steve Jobs, who normally would deliver the WWDC keynote, is due to return from six months’ medical leave at the end of the month. After dramatic weight loss last year triggered speculation of a return of the pancreatic cancer he beat in 2003, Jobs blamed a hormone imbalance before taking time off. His substitute for the WWDC keynote, senior vice-president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller, may update the conference on Jobs’s condition, and whether he is still on track for a late June return. An outside chance would be an appearance by Jobs himself.

While much of Apple’s success has been credited to Jobs’s vision, the company’s stock has rallied in recent months, an indication that investors still have confidence in a Jobs-less Apple.

At WWDC, with iPhone/iPod touch software development booming and 40,000-odd applications on its App Store, Apple will be hoping for some cross-pollination between its desktop and mobile platforms, of both developers and users.