Apparently there have been tons of people querying the term “iphone prototype” for the past 24 hours. Did Apple lose an iPhone prototype? The media has been reporting it while thousands of bloggers are reposting them. It is bad for Apple to have their highly guarded secret to be out there in the wild.
It surely reminds the Tech World about the lost iPhone 4 prototype story from 2010. So, who’s going to buy this missing iPhone prototype, disassemble it and reveal it to the world? Probably the news organizations are treading the water more carefully this time. They do not want to incur Apple’s wrath over the missing iPhone prototype.
So what’s the point of this post, you asked?
Sometimes in December 2010, an Apple employee who is definitely not Phil Schiller told me not to expect iPhone 5 to come out as everyone expected. In March 2011, I was informed that there would be no iPhone 5 at WWDC 2011. iPhone 5 (or the next iPhone) would arrive before Holiday 2011. When I was told “the next iPhone” I assumed it would be iPhone 5. I wondered why this source always said “the next iPhone” instead of “iPhone 5”?
I then jokingly asked this Apple employee who can’t be Tim Cook, successor to Steve Jobs as Apple CEO:
“I know you have the next iPhone prototype. Can I have one? You don’t have to worry because no one would believe that I have one anyway.”
For some reasons, this Apple employee laughed and changed the subject of our conversation.
What do we know about the next iPhone? All I can tell you that several Apple management team members are heading off to China this week.