Thanks to an issue with light leaking onto the camera sensor, Apple has delayed the white iPhone 4 until at least March of next year… a nine month delay which probably harbingers the cancellation of that device.
It’s a delay that has bitten some customers harder than others: in fact, some customers have been so desperate to have a white iPhone 4 that they have converted them to white themselves as an aftermarket mod.
Don’t even think about buying or selling an iPhone 4 modded to white on eBay, though: Apple’s coming down hard on “fake” and “counterfeit” white iPhone 4s, banning them from sale on the world’s most popular online auctioning site.
Apparently, the owner of a 16GB iPhone 4 recently decided to sell his device in order to buy a Motrola Droid. Advised that the best way to get more money for his phone was to convert it to a white model through iFixDirect, he laid out $179.99 for the color conversion and then put the device up on eBay, stating the caveat that it was a modded device and not, say, a leaked prototype.
It didn’t matter, though. 48 hours later, the eBay ad was pulled because Apple had claimed that it was a “counterfeit product which infringed” on their rights. Probably for the best — most of the “white iPhone 4s” on eBay are pretty sketchy — but still, just a warning: if you try to sell your modded iPhone 4, Apple’s going to be watching.
