Rumors Gone Wrong: The Unfortunate Tale of the ‘Black iPhone 5C’

You may have seen the recent rumors floating around about a black iPhone 5C (Apple’s rumored, yet all-but-confirmed cheaper iPhone). You may have even seen some shoddy pictures of such a device at a certain popular “technology news” blog. Unfortunately, as pointed out by some keen sleuthing by well-sourced Apple insider Sonny Dickson, the images come from a Chinese social network, and depict nothing but a cheap approximately $13 “dummy phone” that anyone with a credit card could purchase from TVC-Mall immediately.

From the original report at SonnyDickson.com:

Earlier this week, the Apple “blogosphere” went ablaze over the possibility of a black color option for Apple’s upcoming lower-cost iPhone, referred to by most as the iPhone 5C. The report, which included images of a supposed black iPhone 5C rear shell, originated from Chinese social network Weibo user Ban base de mango (as reported by BGR).

The photos that accompanied the report (pictured above) even pictured the black rear shell next to Apple’s current iPhone 5. Unfortunately […] there’s a tiny little problem with the report as a whole: it’s completely false. We can exclusively confirm that not only will Apple not offer a black color option for the iPhone 5C when it is expected to go on sale next month, but in fact, they never planned a black color option in the first place.

[…] the exact item pictured in those “leaked” black iPhone 5S photos is in fact nothing more than a cheap, crudely-constructed dummy phone available to purchase for a mere $13.39 from TVC-Mall.com. […] The rumors surrounding a possible black iPhone 5C are not only false, but embarrassingly so – and anyone who had bothered to do a bit of research could have found as much out in just a few quick moments on Google.

Ouch. That’s gotta suck for the sites that reported this as a fact  – and for everyone that believed it was true just because they read it on the internet.

J. Glenn Künzler

Glenn is Managing Editor at MacTrast, and has been using a Mac since he bought his first MacBook Pro in 2006. He lives in a small town in Utah, enjoys bacon more than you can possibly imagine, and is severely addicted to pie.