Super-thin 3G iPhone out late 2008?

Barely a month goes by without one analyst or another claiming they’ve unearthed details of the next-gen iPhone, but the latest rumour seems to hold some water.

Gartner’s Ken Dulaney appears to be the company’s resident Apple twitcher, and now reckons Jobs & Co are amassing 10 million 3G iPhones for sale towards the end of the year. What’s more, he says they’re much thinner than the current model, thanks to an all-new, more energy efficient, OLED screen.

Since Apple has already pledged to sell 10 million of the current-generation iPhone before the end of 2008, it’s a safe bet that it’ll offload all of them (or as many as possible) before introducing the 3G version, and since European sales have reportedly been slower than expected, that’ll push Apple close to the end of the year.

Then again, Apple’s not beyond ditching its own products if it has a better version ready. In 2005 it discontinued the iPod mini at the height of its success… only to replace it with another best seller, the iPod nano.

If Apple thinks it can boost European sales with a 3G iPhone, you can bet it’ll shove it onto the shelves. But since there’s no wide-reaching 3G infrastructure in the US, will the Americans be so lucky? As ever, we’ll have to wait and see.

TBC | £TBC
Apple (via iPod Observer)

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