Ever since Steve Jobs told the British press last September that they could "expect a 3G iPhone late next year," the question has been not "if" but "when" exactly.

Speculation grew in October when Broadcom began delivering samples of what it called a "3G Phone on a Chip" (link) and again in November when AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson promised that we'd "have it next year" at whatever price Jobs decides to set.

Now, with less than three months before Apple's (AAPL) Worldwide Developers Conference (June 9-13), we're getting a flurry of leaks and rumors offering fresh details about the 3G iPhone and zeroing in on a late-May to June release.

• Last Friday, Digg founder Kevin Rose, who has a mixed record on iPhone predictions, told the audience for his Diggnation podcast that the 3G iPhone would have live video-conferencing capabilities. (YouTube link)
• On Tuesday, Gartner Group analyst Ken Delaney told iPod Observer that slower than expected sales in Europe for the EDGE-based iPhone had increased pressure on Apple to release a 3G model, and that according to his Asian sources Apple had ordered "a second round of 10 million iPhones based on the 3G network."
• On Wednesday, Digg's Rose followed up on his Friday podcast with a Twitter post in which he reports that a high level vice president with a big company that works with Apple told him that the new iPhone "will ship in June w/3G and GPS."
• Reflecting the newly reported 3G iPhone build plans, BMO Capital Markets' Keith Bachman on Thursday raised his bearish 2008 estimate of 8.5 million iPhones to 9.9 million, just a hair under Apple's own target of 10 million. Even his new estimate, he now says, may prove conservative.

Jobs' keynote address at the WWDC that second week in June would seem a logical moment to reveal the new phone, of course. But that's what many observers thought last year, when they predicted that Jobs would release the original iPhone at the end of his speech. Instead, Apple began selling the phone a few weeks later, on June 29.

The most detailed speculation we've read to date about the likely specs of the new iPhone is still Seth Weinraub's "best guesses," posted in mid-February in his Apple, Ink column at Computerworld.

Devices like the Razr2 V8 haven't done enough to raise Motorola's profile and its revenues. Image: Motorola

CEO Greg Brown says splitting the company will improve Motorola's focus. Image: Motorola

The year is 2010, and the Motorola brand is hot again. By aggressively retooling its design and manufacturing processes, the independent cell phone business has returned to profitability, grabbed back market share from Samsung and Sony Ericsson, and gained on Nokia (NOK) with low-cost handsets in developing markets like India and China.

Meanwhile, in its separate wireless equipment business, Motorola has outmaneuvered tech titan Cisco (CSCO) in the corporate market, and out-innovated both Cisco and Apple (AAPL) by reinventing set-top boxes that bring the Internet to the TV. Investors are thrilled, and they trace it all back to Motorola's (MOT) breakup announcement in March 2008.

Sound like a fantasy?

Odds are, that's all it is – and that's the downside to the Schamburg, Ill., company's announcement Wednesday that it will split itself in half in 2009. Though the news is probably music to the ears of activist investor Carl Icahn, who has been agitating for a breakup to boost Motorola's flagging stock price, it's difficult to see how two mini-Motos will be better positioned to compete with some of the best-managed competitors in the technology world.

Motorola CEO Greg Brown sees the spin-off differently. "I think it provides a clear sense of our intentions and direction," Brown tells Fortune. "The independence, improved focus and alignment of individual organizations will facilitate and enable stronger performances."

We've been here before, however. In previous slumps, Moto management hocked heirlooms like the automotive and semiconductor divisions in the name of raising money and gaining focus. Did it work? Well, if trimming divisions were the recipe for its success, Motorola would be thriving by now. Instead the firm has swung from a $3.6 billion profit in 2006 to a $49 million loss in 2007, and the stock is flirting with five-year lows. Motorola's problem isn't size – it's discipline. "Every time they go back to the drawing board, they start talking about selling off businesses, splitting up the company," says Shawn Campbell, of Campbell Asset Management, who has followed Motorola for years. "They're running out of things to sell." More