It’s real, and it’s fabulous

So supposedly Gizmodo has a prototype that is, in fact, the newest iPhone. Quick thoughts:

* To all appearances, the hardware has been upgraded in the places you’d like to see it upgraded. There appears to be noise-cancellation technology built in, the display is a higher resolution, the back camera has a flash and the front camera exists, the battery is non-trivially larger than before. It’s not possible to tell RAM, storage, or processor speed, as Apple was able to brick the phone remotely and there’s nothing inside that tells. Nevertheless, it stands to reason that the phone will probably be at least the equal of the Nexus One in all specs.

* I’m only half-joking when I say that whoever lost this phone has a lifespan measurable against a fruit-fly’s. In all my time with the Cupertino Hexachrome Produce Concern, Ltd, I only ever saw one pre-production prototype outside the building, once. This thing should be on super monkey lockdown, and whoever let it get away is in massive, MASSIVE violation of the standard Apple NDA. Right now, for whoever Mr. X is, the best case scenario is that he loses his job and that’s it.

* The phone uses a micro-SIM, like the iPad but unlike most every other phone out there. This is a new wrinkle, and one that so far is on the radar of every major GSM carrier but not in practice with any other hardware maker. The bigger issue is that it will make it difficult to move back and forth between the iPhone and another GSM device using the same SIM card – which is another form of hardware lock-in along the lines of the frequency band problem that makes AT&T 3G incompatible with T-Mobile 3G devices and vice versa. Long story short: it will be damn near impossible to use this notional new iPhone simultaneously on a single account with a Nexus One, barring the adoption of micro-SIM by Google and HTC.

* Apropos of nothing, HTC just launched a new Android phone on the Verizon network: the Droid Incredible. Wait, isn’t the Droid a Motorola phone? Yes, but it’s the Motorola Milestone everywhere else in the world (esp. on GSM abroad), and as it turns out, the “Droid” trademark is licensed to Verizon, NOT Motorola. So let’s see: Motorola releases the hottest Google phone in the world, only to see themselves sandbagged with the Nexus One a couple months later – and now, the big V has given the Droid mark to the maker of the Nexus One for another non-Moto phone.

If I were the CEO of Motorola, I would have taken a flamethrower to the place.