Apple just can’t seem to keep its hands on a prototype these days. Less than a month after Gizmodo released the first full teardown of the fourth generation iPhone, new teardown pictures of a different handset have been posted to Vietnamese forum Taoviet (link includes breakdown images, which are also mirrored at MacRumors)
According to the forum posts, a Vietnamese businessman was somehow able to purchase this new iPhone prototype on a trip to the States. It certainly seems legitimate: the teardown even reveals an Apple-branded chip.
There’s not much new information here. The iPhone turns on, and seems to load one of the internal diagnostic programs Apple uses to measure screen burn-in. The ugly screws on the bottom of the Gizmodo prototype have been removed, and the original leak’s “XXGB” marking on the faceplate has been replaced with a “16GB” branding.
Interesting, but at this point, I don’t really think the story is the next iPhone. We know pretty much everything there is to know about it, hardware wise. The real story here is how Apple’s once perfect track record for secrecy has been compromised to the extent that they can not only lose multiple prototypes of one of the most important gadgets of the year, but that an Asian man on holiday can somehow manage to pick one up.
[via Engadget]
