Apple’s new iPhone is expected to debut June 9, according to mounting speculation, and already the pundits are asking if an improved model will actually be impressive and desirable enough for the company to hit its oft-stated target of 10 million sold in 2008.

According to the John Markoff in the NYT, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) has a way to go. After a year of strong sales, the iPhone now sells at “the less than spectacular” pace of 600,000 units a month. It shipped 5.5 million units at the end of March, and sold 1.7 in the first three months of the year, which means it has 8 million units more to shift to reach its goal. That amounts to a lot of pressure on the new model, whose biggest improvement will supposedly be its ability to work on 3G networks. Faster downloading is certainly nice, but analysts don’t believe it will be enough to get Apple to its 10 million target.

Still, there’s no dismissing the influence that the iPhone extends on the entire industry. As independent wireless analyst Chetan Sharma noted, “iPhone is not only having an impact on data revenues,” he said, “but also on device design, mobile advertising road maps, and applications and services that are being contemplated for the future.”