Rumours, again, abound (did you miss the air of intrigue?) - that date about the possibility of a semi-imminent software upgrade from Apple that will leave a few critics happier with their cellular purchases.  David Ciccone by at Mobility Today has had a sliver of anonymous juice in his inbox with a list of what improvements are about to drop; you can check out the full list after the cut, but highlights include iChat, customisable ringtones and a file explorer which will match that of Leopard, complete with CoverFlow.

Meanwhile, Phone Different take up the baton and run with it in a very exciting, 3G direction.  They’re looking at Ars Technica’s iPhone chip analysis and pointing at at mysterious chip on the daughterboard which might just contain soon-to-be-unlocked WCDMA capabilities:

“that specific part is a jack-of-all trades that can decode/encode audio formats, decode

H.264 video, perform EDGE modem capabilities, and interface with Bluetooth, FM radio, and other systems, as well as drive the camera and the high-resolution display. Interestingly abundant, the details sheet for that device claims that it is 3G upgradable and contains a WCDMA coprocessor”Ars Technica

So will a simple firmware upgrade release a 3G genie in date for the European iPhone launch?  It’s a fair - and actually cost effective - notion, and one shared by the master of meandering analysis Robert X. Cringely; as Phone Different say, whether the US is to get an HSDPA radio soon after Apple will need to re-submit the handset for FCC approval.  You can guarantee there’ll be a whole lot of geeks and analysts watching the certification results like hawks.

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Original post by Chris Davies