iPad and iPhone owners waited a long time for iOS 4.2 to release, then were kicked back another week for iOS 4.2.1 as Wi-Fi issues were resolved. Does Apple have something else up its sleeve? Could an update be coming as early as this month or maybe even next week?

There's been some rumors swirling around out there on the intertubes about the possibility that Apple was preparing iOS 4.3 to hit the street in mid-December, hot on the heels of the earlier month's release of 4.2.1. So far the rumors were just that -- rumors and speculation. Sure, they had decent sourcing from Daring Fireball's John Gruber plus some collaborative evidence in News Corp.'s planned release of an iPad only "newspaper," but it was a one off.  Sure, Apple and News Corp. were working tightly together on this, and maybe, as some speculated, Apple was giving Rupert Murdoch a taste of a little early API loving, but it was a special case.

After all, where were the developer seeds of this new iOS to test out these subscription models? No Golden Master, then no new iOS, right?

Well whether or not that's the case, according to Apple Insider, News Corp. isn't the only publication with December subscription plans. The UK's paper, Guardian, in a blog post for users of their popular iPhone app, apologized for issues with their app's updates and offline reading. They promised the issue was fixed in the latest version, announced an upcoming new, new app, then let this nugget of info drop:

"We've already announced that the new app will have a new price point: £2.99 for six months and £3.99 for 12 months...We'll be launching the new app globally for the first time and although we can't confirm exactly when it will be available, we're working towards a pre-Christmas release."

Interesting, very interesting. We still don't have any kind of public iOS seed out there for this kind of thing, but Apple may be partnering closer with content providers than they have been with fart soundboard developers. Such a cooperative business arrangement wouldn't necessarily be inconceivable. Granted, pre-Christmas is a desire for the Guardian, so next week fits into that timeline, as does the week after and the week after that. And, of course, this is just what the news org hopes to see happen, not confirmation that it definitely will be happening.

So, as usual with Apple stories, we suppose we just have to wait until next week and see what happens. Your move, Cupertino.