Next Generation iPhone to Support HD Video and Apple TV-Like Behavior?

A report from PhoneNews.com last week claims that Apple may be planning on integrating High Definition playback in their future iPhones and iPod Touches.

The phone site believes that Apple's recent clearance of Apple Composite AV Cables and Apple Component AV Cables are to make way for a new consolidated cable that will ship ahead of the next generation iPhone.

Apple will remedy this with a cable, which is known simply as the Apple AV Cable. The cable will function similar to the Xbox 360 Component AV Cable. The consolidated cable will support both component and composite output, allowing users to plug in to both HDTV and SDTV displays without the need for multiple cables.

PhoneNews claims the reason for this consolidation will be the incorporation of HD display capabilities on the devices as well as HD video output (720p and 1080i).

What this could mean is that the iPhone or iPod Touch could act as a make-shift Apple TV. They envision plugging your iPhone into an Apple AV Dock connected to your HDTV. This would then be able to stream video over Wi-Fi from your computer's iTunes library. This added functionality would skip the time-consuming step of syncing HD videos to the device itself and replicate some of the behavior of the Apple TV.

We're not sure what to make of this report though the possibilities are intriguing. PhoneNews.com has not been a regular source of Apple rumors and their last try wasn't accurate.