Only lately, talks about the iPhone keep on resurfacing with not a few claiming it's about time the said company venture into the world of mobiles. Well, add Prudential Equity Group analyst Jesse Tortora to those predicting that there will be an iPhone in the very near future.

According to him, he expects Steve Jobs and his crew to unveil a "music phone" in Macworld - a gathering of Mac-anatics - January of next year. He base his guess on the fact that every year, the event is held witness to Apple's revelation of new products. He even hinted that the said phone could be Wi-Fi-equipped, and should be available March, 2007.

The iPhone looks to be a promising one for Apple, but some analysts are a little dubious whether it'll have a shot in the market. They outlined the possible difficulties that Apple may encounter: tight competition, carrier issues, and possibly, Steve Jobs himself.

Of course, Apple has known all along that to hack its way in the jungle of mobile giants, it has to offer a unique product - one that will fill the gaps that other handsets leave unaddressed such as bigger memory, easy synchronization with music downloads, and efficient wireless service providers. Cingular, as we know it, has now tied up with Apple but the iPhone's appeal will further increase if it could work with other providers as well. Question is, will the major wireless providers embrace the iPhone?

Some analysts see the iTV instead as the better bet than the iPhone. Apple are just taking chances, and it was evident in the history of their products. But then again, with their marketing genius and success on the Mac and iPod, who are we to judge what will become of the iPhone?

Apple has posted an impressive US$ 4.84 billion revenue and net profit of US$ 546 million for the fiscal fourth quarter ended September 30. Now, we know that's a lot of money in the bank. But what's even more interesting is that Apple continues to sell tons of iPods. Yeah, that stylish music device isn't losing steam as it nears its fifth birthday.

Apple shipped 8,729,000 iPods during the quarter, a 35% growth from the previous quarter. With such remarkable staying power, it'll take a lot to dethrone the iPod. To date, Apple has sold more than 39 million iPods, and with the red iPod nano in the works, there'll be several millions more added to that record. Surely, there'll be more birthdays to come for the small wonder.

While the iPod is hogging the limelight, 1,610,000 Macs found their way into homes and offices, representing a 30% growth from the year-ago quarter. That translates to a total of 5.3 million Macs sold to date.

Steve Jobs has this to say: "This strong quarter caps an extraordinary year for Apple. Selling more than 39 million iPods and 5.3 million Macs while performing an incredibly complex architecture transition is something we are all very proud of. Looking forward, 2007 is likely to be one of the most exciting new product years in AppleÂ?s history.Â?

We couldn't agree more.

Some pretty concrete information on a sixth generation touchscreen iPod, supposedly coming in December, has emerged on the internet today. A journalist was said to have made contact with a well-informed executive 'close to Apple'. As usual, the informant's name cannot be revealed but it has been said that he is a member of the staff for a multinational company that produces iPod products. In this case, the name of the chap in question may not matter; what matters is what he said.

The exec says his company is working on a 6G iPod accessory that will come to the market shortly before the 6G iPod launch in December and will benefit hugely from the new portable media player's screen that will apparently fill the whole side of the device and offer much higher resolution video. He said that Apple were aiming for 480p content but couldn't guarantee it, only saying that it would definitely be of a much greater quality than what you can get on an iPod today. "This is why Jobs isnÂ?t afraid of the Zune," said the exec after explaining this. As long as the 6GB iPods stay away from Windows viruses, it be okay.

We'll be celebrating the iPod's 5th birthday in a week. With that in mind, Newsweek's Steven Levy interviewed Apple CEO Steve Jobs about Apple's much-beloved MP3 player, about how it all began, about Job's outlook on Microsoft's Zune player (reputed to be the next iPod killer), and about Job's outlook towards the near future.

First up. Jobs, when asked about the iPod's success as a player, and how it had succeeded where players before it failed. The secret? "Look at the design of a lot of consumer productsÂ?they're really complicated surfaces. " Jobs said about the designs that had been there before. He further explained that the iPod's forte had always been its simple elegance - it was a very well thought-out system that didn't burden its user with complicated music libraries; that was what iTunes was for.

The other more pressing note, Newsweek inquired what was Job's opinion on the Zune, Microsoft's contender against the iPod. Was he worried? "In a word, no," Jobs said about the Zune, as he explained how the internet vids of Zune users being able track other Zune owners, and its ability to share music had not impressed him. His suggestions for sharing tunes? Share the earphones. Simple, practical, foolproof.

Lastly, he was quizzed regarding his outlook for the iPod as a music player. With features like web books and podcasts now part of the iPod's functions, would the iPod still be a music player? "I think that music faded in importance for a while, and the iPod has helped to bring music back into people's lives in a really meaningful way," he said, implying the iPod's core would always be its music-carrying ability, even as it expanded into uncharted waters.

And with this, we kick off (NOT the iPOD!) the week prior to its birthday.

Steve Jobs really did a great job hyping up the Apple phone so much so that rumors just seem to keep on weaving itself as to what the phone would exactly be like.

From AllGadgets.org, the grapevine just got juicier as fans of Apple have allegedly found references to the GPS data in Apple's iPhoto software. This, in case you're not aware, is said to be used with the iPhone. Says the overzealous Nancy Drews, the code of the software references GoogleMaps, while also hinting at the idea that the iPhoto will also be able to allow photos to be tagged with location data.

And of course, as it is practically unimaginable now to have a mobile phone without an installed camera in it, you can expect no less from this secret Apple phone. Imagine it with a GPS, and able to sync data taken across iTunes and iPhoto whenever you dock it. Imagine that the GPS device can also be a means for tracking the unit down if it gets lost or stolen. Imagine, cause it just might turn out to be how you pictured it.

But again, these are all just rumors. So until we hear some more concrete information from Apple itself (which we doubt to be any time soon), let's just keep imagining. It'll all come together in good time.

The publicity on the whole Apple's stock option practices fiasco still hasn't died down, and now Apple CEO Steve Jobs is now fast becoming the target for further investigation. Now the question is, will Steve Jobs be graduating from the Apple board and walking down the hall of shame?

In previous interviews with Jobs, he claims that he doesn't know nor understand anything about the accounting implications. But IF the investigation finds that Jobs knew more about the company's practices than he's letting on, particularly about the accounting, recording, and reporting of grants, there's gotta be somebody to take his place right?

So who would be the possible replacements for Jobs? Over at AAPL, they have posted up a list of possible candidates to take the CEO position and they are:

• Phil Schiller - long-time head of global product marketing. He has been with the company since 1997 and has been critical in most product launches.
• Tim Cook - The company's COO, has had a long career at IBM and heads the Mac division.
• Tony Fedell - One of the fathers of the iPod; has an engineering background and is a former executive at Philips Electronics.
• William Campbell - One of Apple's leading directors. He has run a large public software company, Intuit.
• Jerome York - Although he is over 70, York has experience operating troubled companies. He was CFO of IBM and a member of that company's board. He is also on the GM board.
• Jim Allchin - Head of platforms and services at Microsoft, and plans to retire with the the launch of Vista. Also has an engineering background.
• Sue Decker - The highly regarded CFO of Yahoo! She has a Wall St. background and now runs several key divisions at Yahoo!
• John Thompson - The highly-regarded CEO of Symantec, has a background in running a large software company and is well liked on Wall Street.

How about you, who do you think would be the best replacement for Steve Jobs?

Maybe it's too soon, maybe it's too late, but we surmise that everyone's gearing themselves up to the new era of downloadable content. The iPod suddenly feels as valuable as a lifejacket in the middle of the sea. Even George Lucas has felt this, and we don't wonder anymore why he suddenly decides to focus on creating TV and downloadable "on-demand" programming. It's all about the money -- and today, according to Lucas, online is where the money is.

Put simply, a budget of US$ 200 million on a traditional film can make 120 hours worth of downloadable movie content, instead of 50 to 60 two hour movies. And it's all going to be more profitable to sell on a pay-per-view basis, instead of the financially risky silver screen. This, coming from the guy who gave us the million-dollar box-office hits such as the epic "Star Wars" movies and "Indiana Jones" series, just to name a few.

A meeting with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter should hint us of what's to come. With "Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Vol.1 and 2" already available on iTunes, only time will tell when finally we'd be seeing less movies in the theaters and more on our mini-screens. And that's not too far in the future, we think.

If Jon Lech Johansen - the same Jon Lech Johansen they call DVD Jon who reverse-engineers data formats and has become infamous for hacking encrypted DVDs so that they play in Linux at the tender age of 15 - is after your technology, would you lose sleep over it?

Well apparently not Apple head honcho Steve Jobs. After a meeting with Johansen and his partner Monique Farantzos some time in January discussing their new company plans, he dismissed it by saying that while Apple was not a litigious company, other firms of the same nature might not go so easy on whatever DVD Jon might be up to.

Now, while Steve Job's extreme confidence is admirable, will it bite him back in his arse? See, Johansen's plan is to add the DRM rather than breaking it. He wants to license the technology to companies who want their content to be playable on Apple devices.

This is not the first time for DVD Jon to get in the ring with Apple. In November 2003, Johansen released QTFairUse, an open source program which dumps the raw output of a QuickTime AAC stream to a file that could bypass the digital rights management (DRM) software used to encrypt content of music from media such as those distributed by the iTunes Music Store, Apple Computer's on-line music store.

If iTunes has the potential to kill off Blu-Ray and HD-DVD - and even DVD as well, then it probably explains why Wal-Mart is worried. Worried enough to - according to some sources - threaten any Hollywood player that decides iTunes is the wave of the future.

Well, the story that appeared in the New York Post says that Wal-Mart CD/DVD sales executive David Porter toured Hollywood studios to deliver the message: join iTunes, Wal-Mart buys less of your movies. It wasn't exactly an offer they couldn't refuse - one high-level studio executive says that they "all want to be in the Apple business" - but then Steve Jobs reportedly called Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott to ask him to moderate his stance.

Wal-Mart is a power player in Hollywood: it accounts for five billion dollars in Hollywood's DVD revenue. That's a lot of revenue. But then, so's Apple, if Steve Jobs' in the Disney board, and it continues to sell iPods like hotcakes (with iTV to follow).

Clash of the titans? A Wal-Mart spokeswoman announced, "We intend to meet our customer needs whether they choose to purchase movies online or in the store and will continue to work hard with all our partners to do that." They're hedging their bets?

(True to journalistic form, all the sources for the New York Post's article remain unidentified).

Ever since Jobs decided to set the digital entertainment world on fire with his declaration of the (still temporarily code-named) iTV, the curious have been asking, "Well, what exactly is the iTV?" We ourselves, among many others, have only been able to give snippets of information as they came. And we're just as curious as you guys are.

Enter Macworld. Even they don't have as close a look as they would have liked of the iTV, but being the Mac experts that they are, have decided to proceed with what Steve Jobs has said about the iTV, gathered stuff from the September 12 presentation, and gave this FAQ on the iTV. So to all who've been asking what exactly is the iTV, here are highlights of their extensive FAQ:

• What is iTV? We've once called it the Living Room Mac, based on the educated guess of a New York Times writer, because it IS a Living Room Mac. It combines the digital media convergence of the Mac's Front Row - which connects your digital TV to a Mac CPU and to the Internet beyond - with the wireless ease of AirPort. A lot easier than hooking up the Mac Mini to the TV. iTV will stream iTunes media running off a Mac or Windows PC and can be operated with the Apple Remote.

• The "temporarily-named" iTV? It can change. Call it Apple's iDevice-prefixing penchant. The thing is, Elgato's already making the eyeTV, a digital TV receiver. Even Apple has an "iTV" branded accessory out there with the Monster iTV link. Steve Jobs called it an internal code-name. It is a snappy, albeit temporary, code-name, though.

Want to know more? Read the full article after the jump!