Noting that he hasn't "seen anything from Apple that the iPhone's debut is imminent," Yankee Group analyst Michael Goodman on Tuesday tried to dispel rumors about the product during an interview with Tracy Johnke of MarketWatch.

With Christmas just over a month away, Mr. Goodman said that right now "is a poor time to generate interest in a new product because it would get lost in the holiday shuffle. On top of that, he pointed out, even if Apple announced the so-called "iPhone" tomorrow, the company would have great difficulty getting it onto store shelves in time for the holidays, and it would only see the benefit of a few days' worth of sales during its current fiscal quarter.

Mr. Goodman pegged January's Macworld Expo San Francisco as the "most likely time to introduce it," but any time other than that would require a major press event. "They're not going to just issue a press release," he said. "If and when it comes, the iPhone will be a big announcement with Steve Jobs standing on a stage showing it off."

While Apple has a track record of announcing such press events just a week or two before they happen, the analyst noted that such events still take time to put together, so it's unlikely anything like that would happen this quarter.

On Tuesday, Apple's stock reached a new 52-week high, driven in large part by a Monday report from American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu, who believes that the company has a second iTunes cell phone in development. He thinks it will be focused on instant messaging.