Appleinsider reports that Apple has filed for another trademark for the "iPhone" term on September 15th with "a Far Eastern trademark office". The filing describes the iPhone as under "handheld and mobile digital electronic devices for the sending and receiving of telephone calls, faxes, electronic mail, and other digital data; MP3 and other digital format audio players".
Apple's rumored phone has been dubbed "iPhone" due to Apple's ownership of the iPhone.org domain name for the past seven years. Apple, however, owns a number of unused domain names.
More evidence of a legitimate interest in the iPhone name came when Apple filed for iPhone trademarks in Australia and the UK in 2002. This is only the latest filing is of iPhone trademarks. Interestingly, another company has the iPhone trademark in the U.S.
Meanwhile, Prudential analyst Jesse Tortora released a research note to clients indicating that according to their "checks", Apple's entry into the phone market would come in two forms. One model is expected to be a "smart phone" with integrated keyboard, video and music capabilities while the other model would be a slimmer phone that just played music (possible rendition). One of the models will incorporate Wifi according to the report.
Reportedly, there are some concerns about market acceptance and battery life and Apple is only planning to market the phones in limited quantities to test the market.
Incidentally they also believe that the long rumored "wide screen video iPod" will begin production in the December quarter, but is not expected to see a release until next year.
