The next model of Apple’s iPhone has just had its hardware finalized and now its software is getting finalized as well. Internally codenamed on iOS devices (including the new Apple TV) for cross-device communications purposes as the ‘iPhone 3,2’, this next model could start shipping from China as early as January. According to BGR, their sources have discovered something unusual about this next iPhone model: it has a SIM card slot.

Woah what!? Yeah, Verizon is expected by everyone (including the WSJ) to get its own iPhone around January. Rumors are circulating that a CDMA and GSM compatible world phone iPhone will be built and called the iPhone 5 around the middle of 2011. (Verizon and Sprint use SIM card-less CDMA network technology while AT&T, T-Mobile and most carriers around the world use GSM network technology and SIM cards.) The fact that the next iPhone model has a SIM card slot certainly is a curveball.

Apple could be re-releasing the iPhone 4 with an antenna design fix in both black and white colors (thus the lack of white iPhone 4s so far). Or Apple could be going ahead and just making the Verizon and AT&T iPhone 4 identical with both CDMA and GSM technology like some BlackBerrys have. Hmm, this is complicated. So many possibilities abound. A CDMA iPhone with GSM roaming via the SIM card when overseas? I don’t even want to try to guess what Apple is up to here.

BGR is also claiming that the iPhone 5 is in the engineering verification test phase. That’s where the engineers check to make sure the components work together properly and there is no interference. Apple might have skipped that one with the iPhone 4 and its ‘Antennagate’ nonsense. Which reminds me: Anyone have to complain to Apple to get a free rubber case after buying an iPhone 4 past September? Let me know.

So as long as this info from BGR holds true, we know two things. Apple is indeed making two iPhone models for sale next year and the model slated for around January will have a SIM card slot (no one knows outside of Apple yet what for). Everyone’s saying Apple has a CDMA iPhone up its sleeve, but it looks like we will have to just wait and find out. Let’s hope the Verizon iPhone really does exist.