I've practically given up caring, but with the 30th anniversary of Apple just having passed, and pundits waiting for Steve Jobs to pull the next great rabbit out of the Apple hat (three metaphors in one phrase!) talk of an iPod mobile phone continues to rumble. This week Macworld posted scuttlebutt of a rumored delay relayed by ThinkSecret in the mythical device because Apple wanted to build a new mobile from scratch rather than repeat the ROKR experience. This is of course immediately contradicted by DigiTimes, which says Apple is already working with Taiwanese contract manufacturers to push the device out on schedule. Meanwhile, Anssi Vanjoki of Nokia says that mobile phones will kill the standalone MP3 player.

Who knows? It may happen the other way around as voice telephony is subsumed as a secondary function of the next generation of portable information and media devices.