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The latest Apple rumors - the company will introduce two new 3G iPhones, tailored for different geographic markets, and the company is readying support for ultra-fast 802.11n Wi-Fi for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Daniel Amir, semiconductor analyst with Lazard Capital Markets, is keeping the swirl of speculation over Apple's next iPhone moves alive, writing in a research note that there will be a high end phone for north America and a low end version for rapidly growing economies such as Brazil, China, India and Russia, where operators rarely offer subsidies and so Apple has had trouble shifting fully priced iPhones. According to Amir's predictions, the US model - presumably also for European carriers like O2 - would have video support, a better digital camera and 32Gb of memory; while the cutdown iPhone might not have video or Wi-Fi, and would have less memory (but could look like the long anticipated 'Nano').

Several hardware IDs were found in the beta version of the iPhone 3.0 software, raising the prospect of multiple new devices, and even of entirely new formats. Amir says iPhone shipments are stronger than expected so far in 2009 and will continue to be so, and could reach 3.8m to 4m units in the first quarter - ahead of analyst consensus of 3m to 3.5m. He also thinks that figure could double in the second quarter, though prices might fall as operators sell off current models in anticipation of new launches.

Meanwhile, Apple is readying a low power implementation of 802.11n for its mobile products, according to Network World. This may require an upgrade to the central processor, so the support would only be available in new models, rather than available as an update for existing iPhone owners.

Again, the recently unveiled beta code for the iPhone 3.0 operating software has given the clues - experts found some radio component specs that indicated a shift to a different Broadcom Wi-Fi chip, the BCM4329, a highly integrated product that combines MAC, baseband and radio for all the Wi-Fi variants (802.11a/b/g/n) plus Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and FM radio receiver/transmitter.

It supports both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, which is important because the latter is less congested, and Apple could increase the synergy between its phones and its AirPort Extreme WLan access point or AirPort Express portable unit, by segmenting them to handle 11n mobiles on 5GHz for superior performance.

Broadcom's chip is targeted at mobile devices, supporting one data stream and one antenna instead of the 2-3 usually specified in 11n - this reduces power and size, but caps performance at around 50Mbps, rather than 11n's full potential of about 150Mbps. This would provide a significant boost for over-the-air content downloading, especially in uncongested spectrum.

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