Last night an Apple spokesperson told Reuters the white iPhone 4 has been delayed once again and the released date pushed back to Spring 2011. We speculated that it wouldn’t make much sense for Apple to keep on delaying the white model and release it a few months before the likely announcement of the iPhone 5, so if they’re going to really do this - it’s got to be something more than a simple color shift.
Oh but wait, Boy Genius Report claims the project has been canceled entirely. Their source confirms the white iPhone 4 is definitely not happening.
According to a tidbit by Cult of Mac, anyway, it seems like the white unit would need a major internal redesign to work as Steve wants. One of their sources close to Apple confirmed that the white iPhone has been delayed because of light leaking problems, specifically light leaking out and causing the camera sensor to take inaccurate pictures. “They’re washed out”, the source claims.
The white iPhone 4 can’t take accurate photographs. The handset’s semi-translucent glass case leaks light in, ruining pictures taken with the internal camera, especially when the built-in flash is used.
You don’t get accurate pictures on the white iPhone because of the color of the glass back. It washes out the pictures,” said a source with connections to Apple who asked to remain anonymous.
The source said Apple has been struggling to isolate the camera sensor. The problem may demand a complete redesign, they said, hence the string of delays.
The source said the problem only surfaced at the last minute at a secret testing facility Apple has set up for case manufacturers.
The white iPhone 4 has been delayed twice already, and many rumors surfaced in the past months regarding the manufacturing problems Apple had to face in order to make the white model work properly as the black. We heard of light leaks from the case in the past, so the report sounds accurate.
I still don’t believe, however, that Apple is going to release “just a white model” 2 months before the WWDC with the iPhone 5 set to be announced on stage. And Apple can’t delay the iPhone 5. So either is the white iPhone going to be a mid-generation redesign with a possible Verizon deal in there as well to set the stage for a CDMA / GSM iPhone 5, or it’s going to be delayed once again or, worse, deleted as BGR claims.
White iPhone 4: we’re done here.
