Walt Mossberg, everyone’s favorite technology columnist, has written a review of the Palm Pre in which he spends a large portion of his time comparing it to the iPhone. Towards the end of the article he spends a little time speculating about what he expects to come from Apple in the iPhone space. It’s interesting speculation coming from Walt, as he tends to be a man “in the know” and often manages to get his hands on pre-release hardware.

Following rumors last week about AT&T offering contract-free iPhones to customers, Apple Retail Stores have now begun selling the devices without the need for a contract. You can now walk into an Apple store, purchase an 8GB or 16GB iPhone 3G, and take it home with you. What you do afterwards is up to you. You can also buy online, through the Apple website.

Numerous websites are reporting independently on iPhone firmware 3.0. The rumor claims that it will support a quad core processor, and there’s evidence to help support that claim.