Speaking of wild 'n' wacky 'n' possibly totally baseless rumors (and c'mon, you know you love 'em), Apple might conceivably be buying a ton of flash RAM from Toshiba for something other than a new iPod-- and no, we're not going to raise the specter of the Newton again. (Well, other than just then, we mean.) Remember a few years back when somebody at an investor's meeting or something questioned Steve Jobs about when Apple would finally release a new PDA and get back into the handheld market? Steve's response was more or less a polite "never"; his reasoning was that people don't actually use PDAs much, and the market was stumbling because everyone was finally starting to realize that. Plus, he figured that whatever people were doing on PDAs would eventually be done on mobile phones instead.

Given the current popularity of PDA hybrid smartphones like the Treo, it looks like he was pretty much right-- but Steve's been asked about the possibility of Apple making mobile phones, too, and if we recall correctly, he said something about leaving the phone-making to the pros. Of course, that hasn't stopped plenty of people from engaging in quiet speculation over the years about the eventual release of an Apple-branded (if not necessarily Apple-manufactured) iPhone. For a while we recall there was a lot of talk about a cobranded handset made by Nokia; in recent months that's given way to a heavier focus on Motorola, especially in light of its recent agreement with Apple to stick a slimmed-down version of iTunes on selected Moto phones.

Well, the latest in the iPhone buzz comes courtesy of one of our favorite bit players, the "mysterious stranger on a train." Faithful viewer Dan informs us that the site admin over at TreoMac.com got drawn into a conversation with a random Motorola employee who had noticed him watching an episode of The Simpsons on his Treo 600 while riding the rails. According to this Mysterious Stranger, he'd personally witnessed an Apple-branded phone "circulating around the office at Motorola"; while he hadn't gotten to handle it himself, he notes that those lucky enough to have done so described it as "sleek and sexy" and said that "iTunes and iPhoto would factor into this device somehow." Other than the apparent presence of some sort of media slot in the top and a USB 2.0 port in the bottom, further details are sadly lacking.

So whaddaya think: true tales of covert Apple phone-dabbling, or just the invention of some guy who passes the time on long train rides by testing the gullibility of whoever happens to be sitting across from him? If we assume the former, it sounds like whatever this Apple-branded phone-thingy might be, it's far enough along in development to be near the production phase... necessitating, say, a whole of extra flash RAM from Toshiba? Just a thought.

Personally, we've been pretty skeptical about Apple ever entering the mobile phone market-- unless it's with a phone that also serves as an iPod photo, which, based on the alleged comments about iTunes and iPhoto integration, we suppose this mysterious Apple-branded prototype just might be. Given the iPod's frankly ridiculous level of mind share right now, Apple may have decided that it can't ignore this opportunity to use the iPod's success as a toehold to establish a presence in the telecom market. After all, a lot more people have mobile phones than iPods-- at least, until this iPhone thing hits the shelves...