According to Strategy Analytics, Apple became the world’s most profitable handset maker in third quarter of 2009 surpassing Nokia. Apple’s operating profit from sale of iPhone came in at $1.6 billion in Q3 2009 compared to total operating profit of $1.1 billion reported by Nokia. This means that two iPhone models, iPhone 3G and 3GS generated more profit for Apple than the total profit Nokia achieved by selling over 100 different handset models. It is very good news for Apple and very bad news for Nokia.

In second iPhone related news, Orange UK, Apple’s second iPhone partner in the country, announced that they sold 30,000 iPhones on the launch day. Orange says that they have broken the previously published first day sales records set by iPhone 3G when it was launched on O2. Orange also said that their Orange Wednesdays app has “gone to the top slot in the Entertainment Category, and hit second place in the free apps chart on the Apple App Store.”

The last iPhone related news comes from Bill Ray of The Register, who believes that Apple plans to embed NFC (Near Field Communications) into next generation iPhone. NFC is a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based technology that can be an RFID tag, and an RFID reader, or even both at the same time. Bill’s assumption is based on the patent that was awarded to Apple in July. The patent describes handheld device that can be used at different times as both an RFID reader and an RFID tag… two devices can be used in close proximity to exchange information such as contact information.

Rumors suggest that Apple has built some prototypes of the next generation iPhone with an RFID reader built-in. However, like everything Apple, we won’t known if Apple is planning to use RFID in iPhone till the company actually announces the device.