Hopefully Apple will put these rumours of new models to bed before long, as they’re getting wilder and wilder - presumably in the hope that by suggesting every possible permutation of hardware combinations, someone will get a couple of bits right and justify their forecasts at a later date.

We heard about the unlikely iPhone Nano weighing in at $99 a while ago, and VentureBeat has picked up on another suggestion by analyst Mike Abramsky who likes the look of this price tag enough to design a whole new concept phone for Apple.

This cheap handset would apparently have GPS and 3G removed, a downgraded camera (if that’s possible) and a new data plan to help bring the costs down.

While the downgrade sounds as though it probably would meet that price tag, the likelihood of Apple going to the effort of designing and manufacturing a considerably less functional device - that would struggle to meet the remit that’s made the iPhone so popular in the first place - makes this predictions considerably less feasible.

The most realistic prediction we’ve heard regarding new iPhones is a simple memory upgrade to 32GB and different coloured cases. Hardly as exciting news, but far more believable.

This could also prompt Apple to sell off stock of current 8GB models closer to this fabled $99 bracket, which is the most probable circumstance that a cut price (but not feature reduced hardware suicide that’s been suggested) iPhone will appear in 2009.