Last week it emerged that Apple had filed documents with the US patent & trademark office to protect a "portable computing device capable of wireless communications". Documents surfaced on Thursday but had reportedly been filed in August. Speculation about designs of an iPhone have been circulating in technology circles for months.

An iPhone would offer serious competition to other popular mobile devices like the Blackberry, Palm Treo, and the Sony Ericsson Walkman phone. Other reports on technology blogs suggested that Apple's component manufacturers had already begun production on elements of the device.

Speculation mounted that the announcement of the iPhone would be launched at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco on 9 January.