Ars Technica earlier reports that an iPhone developer uncovered references buried deep in the new iPhone OS 3.0 that hinted two posibble Apple products, the iProd and the iFPGA.Yes it's possible to find references to Apple products inside code strings in the iPhone OS, such as the iPod 2,1 reference that correctly predicted the arrival of a new iPod Touch, and a more recent reference to an iPhone 2,1 model that seemed to indicate another revision to that product would be arriving soon. The iPhone 3G is listed as iPhone 1,2 in those code strings.
Steven Troughton-Smith, who spotted the entries, is the same developer who activated tethering on the iPhone OS 3.0 beta the other day, claims to have found references to four new Apple products: iPhone3,1, iPod3,1, iFPGA, and iProd0,1. The iPhone and iPod references are self-explanatory (although it's not clear what happened to iPhone 2,1), but iFPGA and iProd are not. He speculates that "iFPGA" may be a device that utilizes a "field-programmable gate array", or one that can be configured to work in different ways after the manufacturing process is complete, unlike ASICs, or application-specific integrated circuits.
While speculation for the iProd is the tablet-like device that has been rumored for quite some time as a possible second-half 2009 product from Apple. It makes sense that Apple would introduce a new naming and labeling convention for such a product, even if iProd isn't the name that passes final muster with the branding people. The 0,1 label could mean that it's not ready for prime time just yet, at which point it would get the 1,0 label as used on the original iPhones and iPod Touches.
Latest update from BoyGeniusReport also states that another reference to an iProd 2,2 was spotted which could be another tablet-like device update. All this are just hints and should not be taken as facts, but we will always see how this turns out.
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