New Widgets found in iPhone Firmware?

The folks over at iPhoneology took the iPhone’s file system off the device and starting looking into it closely. They found a preference file called “DefaultApplicationState.plist,” which includes a list of the usual applications on the iPhone such as the calculator, iPod, Mail, Notes, Safari, and the others. But it also included three other “non-activated” widgets as well as two other applications.

• com.apple.unitconverter
• com.apple.widget.phonebook
• com.apple.widget.translation
• com.apple.widget.worldclock
• com.apple.mobile.radio

The applications you may remember from Dashboard are the Unit Converter, Phonebook, Translation, and World Clock, but mobile.radio is new. The features of the mobile.radio. are pretty much anybodies guess. Some are saying streaming radio a la iTunes, or a wild-throw on either Sirius or XM Satellite Radio, or an integrated FM tuner. I believe it’s for Apple’s Radio Remote that you plug into the dock connector and can listen to FM that way.

As TUAW notes, this is all speculation. As with patents, just because the files are in there doesn’t mean they will actually incorporate them into the next iPhone software version. They are also saying that a few folks are believing they’re just “holdovers from Apple’s translation of OS X to the iPhone firmware.” Whatever the reason may be, we have to remember that more widgets and applications are most likely planned for the iPhone, so this could be a sign of things to come.

Via [TUAW]