Report: iPhone Nano in time for Xmas

The same but smaller?

You can expect an iPhone Nano to be on the shelves in time for the holiday shopping season, according to a report on the UK's Daily Mail website Sunday.

The report, which cited "an industry source," said the product would launch in the UK by mobile phone operator O2 for the pay-as-you-go market, but offered no clue when or if it would be launched in the United States.

The report seems to indicate the iPhone Nano would be a dumb-down version of the current iPhone 3G.

"The iPhone 3G has been the fastest-selling phone ever in the UK, but it is too expensive to be a realistic proposition in the pay-as-you-go market," the source told the newspaper. "However, a cut down version, with the candy bar shape of iPod Nano music players, would be a huge hit as a Christmas gift."

The newspaper suggests that the new iPhone Nano could have a touch wheel interface on one side and a screen on the other, meaning that calls would be dialled from behind and lack full Internet browsing functionality.

If this all sounds a bit familiar, it's because this rumour was floating around last year. Considering the wild success of the iPhone and Apple's plans for a family of iPhones, a move like this certainly makes sense. Whether Apple is ready to do it soon seems to be a bigger question.

One of the more-recent rumours has the iPod Nano getting a slimmed-down makeover. iLounge reports that Apple plans to bring back the thinner iPod Nano design of years past but in a taller package that's a nod to the screen size of today's "fat" iPod Nano.

Apple has held a September iPod event the last several years, and we're pretty sure they'll have another one on tap this year, with a revamped iPod Touch likely to accompany a new iPod Nano. In support of that suspicion, AppleInsider is reporting that resellers have been told to expect shortages of iPods and Macbooks in the coming weeks.