Today, over on Gizmodo, they broke a story of a leaked piece of hardware from Apple. They're saying it's an iPhone 4G or an iPhone HD. It's a pretty exciting design, to be honest, and I would be jazzed to see Apple step in that direction...but I don't know that they will.

The more interesting thing will be to see how Apple decides to handle the feedback it can glean from this leak. Realistically, it would be kind of absurd for Apple not to have multiple prototypes in the functional phase of testing at any one time, and this might not be a device intended for immediate release. We might be looking at a 5th generation device from Apple, or it might be the LTE iPhone that we all know is in the works for the day that AT&T finally rolls out their next-gen network. So, while there is a great deal of talk about the design and the apparent new features it will bring, what might really be happening behind the cloistered walls of Cupertino is a bunch of Apple designers and execs saying, "Oh Crap. They're only excited about the features that won't be ready for another 18 months."

Beyond seeing what features we're all really excited about (and I am excited about the ability to do video iChat on the phone. That would be too cool), Apple also has the opportunity to see what aspects of the design people drool over, or what new magical functions the enthralled masses will ascribe to the very tiniest of indicators.

In a way it's a sort of ingenious way to crowdsource design. The market is busy, through the comments on incalculable gadget blogs, telling Apple what it will buy, how it will imagine things would work, and what they think it should look like. All Mr.s Jobs and Ives have to do is bring a keen imagination and a liberal editors pen to the results.

Only time will tell, but I can tell you this for the very least: I am the most interested in the differences between the device we saw today and the device that Mr. Jobs holds in his hands the next time he says, "Oh and, one more thing..."