According to a post recently published on the Extreme iPod website, both of the major cell phone companies, Sprint and Verizon, have turned down Apple and iTunes at including the player in new versions of their cell phones.
They claim to be coming out with their own versions of music players/stores for their phones…the problem is that they want to charge $2 a piece for every song you download. Not good compared to $0.99.
I dont know much about what iTunes is going to do with their mobile iTunes, but my hopes are that they will allow you to transfer audio to your phone via cable, bluetooth, email or the like and not require you to repurchase all of your audio.
As for podcasting, lets cross our fingers that Apple has not ruled it out. It would be pretty sweet to be able to listen to podcasts on my cell phone and not have to carry my iPod every place.