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* Apple always uses its annual Worldwide Developers Conference to launch a new phone. Last year, it unveiled the iPhone 3Gs on June 8; in 2008, it debuted the iPhone 3G on June 9; in 2007, Apple announced the shipping date of the original iPhone on June 11 (having introduced the phone itself that January).

* An Apple employee lost a prototype of the next iPhone a few months ago; after a few exchanges of dubious legality, the tech-news site Gizmodo published a detailed inspection of that prototype that revealed such additions and tweaks as a new, front-facing camera for video conferencing, a higher-resolution camera with a flash on the back and a higher-resolution screen. (Does that remind you of any other new smartphones?)

So Jobs can't have that much to surprise people with this year's model. There's the issue of what sort of third-party services the new device could support--Skype video-conferencing and Facebook social networking come to mind. There's its name--speculation points to either "iPhone HD" or "iPhone 4G," though the latter wouldn't make sense unless its unveiling is coupled with an AT&T announcement about deployment of its fourth-generation "LTE" mobile broadband network. And, "WWDC" being a developer-oriented event, you can expect news about Apple's iPhone-programming tools and App Store.

You'll notice that I haven't used the magic words "Verizon iPhone." That's because I remain unconvinced we'll see any such thing. Gizmodo's dissection of the prototype didn't reveal any evidence of support for the CDMA wireless technology Verizon uses (but did find a micro-SIM card slot that would only work with the GSM standard AT&T employs). A lot of people seem desperately anxious for such a thing to appear, but I fully expect those folks to have their hopes crushed yet again. Want a different answer? Check back next June.