Businessweek provides speculation that iPod updates are looming in the next few months, and summarizes hints we have heard over the past few months.
CFO Peter Oppenheimer's during Apple's earnings conference responded to speculation about an iPod Phone with: "We don't think the phones that are available today make the best music players. We think the iPod is. But over time that's likely to change, and we aren't sitting around doing nothing"
This led some analysts to believe that Apple would release an iPod-phone very soon.
Indeed, Lions Gate Films CEO stated that Apple was planning on launching movie sales on iTunes by the end of this calendar year. The movie-component to iTunes has been rumored to be launched alongside a new video iPod.
Finally, Apple has not updated the iPod line in many months. The last major revision to the top-end iPod was October 2005.
Analysts generally agree: There's no way Apple is going to sit out the fall quarter. "Don't confuse silence with having nothing to say," says analyst Michael Gartenberg at Jupiter Research. "That has never been the case with Apple."