Heads up, true believers, because rampant iPhone speculation once again rears its ugly head! Actually, truth be told, there's nothing particularly ugly about it, really, other than the fact that it's been popping up periodically since 1999 and we're still really nowhere nearer to finding out just what it's all about. Oooooo, frustrating. And you thought that whole Framistan thing was baffling...

The iPhone mystery originally came to our attention in June of 2000, when rumor hounds first kicked around the possibility that Apple was working on its own mobile phone. Not long afterward, speculation mounted that iPhone would actually be a new "iApp" that would allow Mac users to place free phone calls via the Internet. It was roughly two years ago that someone brought to our attention the fact that Apple had registered the domain name "IPHONE.ORG" a full year earlier; at broadcast time, www.iphone.org still points to Apple's home page, nearly three years after it was first registered. Meanwhile, in terms of solid info on what iPhone actually is, we've got bupkis.

Well, here are the latest pieces of the puzzle: MacRumors notes that Apple has recently registered "iPhone" as a trademark in both Australia and the UK. The Australian filing happened less than two months ago, so it really looks like this mystery product may be getting pretty close to a ship date. Interestingly enough, though, we took a quick poke around the USPTO search engine, and there are a few IPHONEs listed, but none belonging to Apple. Two possibilities present themselves. The first is that since the trademark "iPhone" is already registered by Infogear for one of them thar oh-so-popular "Internet appliances," Apple might opt to name it something else in this country, much the same way that AirPort is known in Japan as AirMac. The second is that Apple has simply decided not to release iPhone in the U.S. because "market research shows that Americans don't like phones, and use them rarely." (Data provided by "Fred's Discount Market Research," where "prices are so low, you'll think we just make everything up!")

So is it an Apple-branded mobile phone, the next gadget in a line of Apple digital appliances led by the iPod? Mmmmm, probably not-- at least, not if the Australian trademark application means anything. iPhone is apparently classified under "computer hardware and software," "communication by computer," and "computer services," all of which implies that the iApp theory might be closer to the mark. We sense what is perhaps the advent of a 'net telephony application that grants .Mac subscribers free Mac-based phone calls anywhere in the world. Or maybe just to Guam. Sometimes it's just all about Guam.