Apple to parallel XNA?

Kotaku posted this morning about the much anticipated [potential] announcement of the third generation iPhone at WWDC (world wide developers conference) next week. However buried under their chat about the new graphics capabilities, I think I've spotted something.

They state that "This rumor comes as word hits that Apple is also starting to hire in-house game developers."

Apple, hiring in-house game developers? But to what purpose? I mean, Apple has never been a gaming company, Cocoa and CocoaTouch whilst they have had great games made with them aren't overly friendly to game devvers, especially newbie ones.

Which has lead me to a slightly bizarre conclusion. I believe that Apple are developing an XNA style framework for the iPhone to get even more people developing games for the platform.

With WWDC around the corner, which is a Developers conference, it seems at least plausible that Apple could be announcing something like this.

Of course, this is pure, idle speculation. We'll know for sure on Monday when WWDC kicks off. I just want you to know that if it's true, I called it first!