“We’re now a week away from the announcement that will surprise no one. Steve Jobs will step up to deliver the keynote address [and the new iPhone] at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference,” Rick Aristotle Munarriz writes for The Motley Fool.

As for the rumors, “the real clincher here is the persistent rumor that the new iPhones will sell for as little as $200… If it’s true — and everyone has been repeating that price since unnamed sources relayed it to Fortune last month — fence-sitting iPhone watchers are going to jump off for joy. The new devices will sell like, well, Apple pancakes. In fact, they’ll sell like iPhones,” Munarriz writes.

MacDailyNews Note: The source of the iPhone subsidy rumor was Scott Moritz, writing for Fortune, “AT&T’s planned $200 subsidy on Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone could increase the sales of the new 3G model by 50%, according to one analyst.” That one analyst was Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi. Mortiz and Sacconaghi are hardly the dynamic duo of accurate Apple prognosticating/analyzing/reporting. Far from it, in fact. Please see these related articles: TheStreet.com’s Moritz tries to conjure up Apple iPhone ‘disappointments’ – September 10, 2007, FUD Alert: CNET article based on lone analyst’s view tries to gin up iPhone demand issue – January 25, 2008, and So-called ‘analyst’ finds his ‘missing’ iPhones – January 28, 2008.

Munarriz continues, “Consumers will love it. If exclusive domestic wireless provider AT&T takes on the bulk of the subsidized hit, Apple investors may love it… I get the euphoria, but shouldn’t shareholders also begin wondering about the fate of the iPod Touch?”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, and not only that, what about the iPod touch? Lower case “t.” Sorry, pet peeve. If, big if, the rumor is true, then we assume that Apple will simply be giving them away to Mac-buying college students. Oh, yeah, and selling them to people who just want an iPod rather than a mobile device that comes with a monthly bill.