Someone has been sneaking Apple news to the Silicon Valley Insider, and if you’re a Beatles fan and a card-carrying iTunes addict you won’t be pleased to hear it.  Apparently their source has told them that, contrary to some predictions, Steve Jobs won’t be announcing the Beatles back-catalogue on iTunes next week; instead, it’ll be the excitement of a new device and an official piece of software that’ll allow you to make ringtones from songs you’ve already bought.

That new device, supposedly, “may or may not be distinct from a new touch-screen device” – in other words it could be either the iPod nano replacement, which is meant to keep the click-wheel, or it could be the iPod Touch which has been described as a phoneless iPhone.

Meanwhile, the ringtone software would allow any track (with the notable exception of songs published by Universal Music) to be turned into a custom ringtone for the iPhone.  Up until now users have been forced to rely on third-party software which does the same thing with any mp3 but requires the iPhone itself to be hacked to some degree in order for the ringtone to be transferred.