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There is this lake, this salty lake, in Utah. We’re going to mine much of the formerly precious mineral to give you with this rumor, but it comes from a reliable and in-the-know friend of ours in the Apple chain of command, so we’re giving it the benefit of the doubt. We’ve heard rumors that were reiterated regarding new iPods next month. The rumors say these 6G iPods would sport hugenormous drives and have wide touchscreens, much like the iPhone. In addition, they’re to feature 802.11n Wi-Fi connectivity. Our source has said that from what he or she knows, that’s right on.

So I was poking around for what other iPhone-esqe features we might see on the new iPod, but they weren’t talking. The idea with dealing with these nefarious leakers is that usually they can’t tell you something, you’ve got to get them to do a reverse denial. So I asked if the iPods would include VoIP, to no dice. Well, what about a weather app? The sources says that to her or his knowledge, there’s nothing like that now.

Well what about YouTube? Surely the iPod to end all iPods, if it indeed has wireless connectivity, would share YouTube with the iPhone and Apple TV, right? The source said that he or she “can’t honestly say it won’t have YouTube.”

So while the rumor isn’t that it will, it’s that it not-won’t. I hate this job. But there you have it, and it makes sense. There are going to be a lot more iPod owners than iPhone owners, so this makes Apple’s deal with YouTube that much juicier. When you think about the four pillars Jobs talked about not long ago, then you start to see a plan to include YouTube on everything Apple sells. But to what end?

We’re thinking there’s a likely YouTube/iTunes combo magic gestalt application on the way. If users could convert and upload to YouTube your own content in iTunes, with the help of iMovie and iPhoto, then suddenly iTunes becomes a music store and media portal. Tricky, and we like it.