At the tail end of last week, analyst Peter Misek got the attention of Sprint customers everywhere by predicting that the next iPhone, which he referred to as the iPhone 4S, would be released on the Now Network. There wasn't any real evidence to back up Misek's claims at the time, but a recently-spotted Apple job listing may serve as support for his statement. Posted on April 2nd, the listing is for a "Carrier Engineer" located in Kansas City, Mo, which is significant for two reasons. First, Kansas City isn't an area that Apple typically searches for new engineers in; second, Sprint's headquarters are located in Overland Park, Kan., which just so happens to be a suburb of Kansas City. The listing was originally posted here, but the location on it has recently changed (you can find a screenshot of the original here). The job description is as follows:

"Member of the Carrier Engineering team that supports taking products through technical approval at the carriers. A Carrier Engineer team is responsible for day-to-day technical interactions with the one or more carriers to track down issues reported by the carrier, assist the carrier with testing they might be conducting and working with program management, software development and test teams to get products approved by the carriers."

This news isn't definitive proof that Sprint will be getting its own version of the iPhone, it certainly makes the rumors harder to ignore. Of course, this isn't the first time that we've heard rumors that a Sprint iPhone was on the horizon, but the arrival of the Verizon iPhone certainly increases the likelihood of a Sprint model coming, as well. What do you all think? Will 2011 finally be the year that Sprint customers get their hands on an Apple iPhone?

Via MacRumors, Stop it, AT&T