iPhone Next-Generation Spotted in the Wild? [Next-Gen iPhone Tested by Apple; Dedicated Maps Navigation App Coming Soon]

What do you say, Apple lovers, are you ready for the next-gen iPhone rumor frenzy? It’s almost December 2009 and we have a long way to go until June 2010. That’s when Apple is expected to unveil its brand new iPhone and until then we can count on more and more iPhone-related rumors to pop up everywhere around the Internets.

So what’s the deal with the new iPhone you ask? Well we talked about it a while ago here at TFTS. Some said it’s going to be a Verizon iPhone others said that it’s going to be an LTE iPhone and although that all sounds pretty logical, we have no proof to back it all up.

Now it looks like said device, the “iPhone 3,1” has been spotted by PinchMedia in its iBART application for public transportation in San Francisco. That number is a clear indication of the next-gen iPhone. The iPhone 3GS is currently identified as the iPhone 2,1 while the original iPhone is also known as the iPhone 1,1 with the iPhone 3G referred to as the iPhone 2,1.

iPhone 3,1 should bring a few hardware changes although nothing is clear at this point. Faster processor? Better camera? AMOLED touchscreen? Better graphics? New battery? These are all questions that still stand and we don’t have any answers for them. We can assume that the new iPhone will bring on quite a few changes and we would be very disappointed if it didn’t.

While I am hoping to finally see a phone capable of beating the iPhone, I am also expecting Cupertino to try to beat its own iPhone 3GS with an even better smartphone. The Motorola Droid and the HTC HD2 are the iPhone’s main adversaries right now so the next-gen iPhone should be a lot better than those two babies put together.

Besides hardware upgrades we’re also expecting better features from the next iPhone. One of them is the new Maps version which should be a Google Maps competitor built on Placebase’s technology. Placebase has been recently acquired by Apple in order to help Cupertino fight Google Maps properly, but we told you all about that already.

Unfortunately there’s no leaked picture of the next-gen iPhone for us folks. Not even a blurry one to analyze today and question its authenticity. Hopefully “leaked” pictures of the new iPhone will be available soon and we’ll be there to tell you all about it.