A new day, a new Apple iPhone 6 leak, and this time the leak seemed to have a bit more credibility, coming from a major US “Gossip” website, or so you would think. Turns out that the images that were published are completely bogus, but hey, don’t go telling the mainstream US media its a fake. They are running with the story anyway.
TMZ is pretty much the biggest website and source of celebrity ‘news’, breaking major stories that include Justin Bieber peeing into a trash can, and Miley Cyrus without here undies – stories that enlighten our dull days when technology news is bit slow. The iPhone might not be a celebrity in the strictest sense, but such is the popularity of the device that it popped up on TMZ, or least appeared to.
It turns out that the pictures published by TMZ have been proven to be fakes. The guys over at 9to5mac.com have assessed the pics and they are pretty certain that the images are in fact those of a well known iPhone 6 clone:
The device the site shows is merely one of the several Android clones floating around which run an iOS 7-esque skin. 9to5Mac covered one of these clones extensively in late July.
One of the key clues that the device shown was not in fact a bona fide iPhone 6 was the OS on the device which seems to show iOS 7 layout, not the newer iOS 8 that will be debut on on the iPhone 6 when it arrives as anticipated in on September 9th. Benjamin Mayo also explains how the text in the iOS calendar app is generated dynamically, matching system date and time, and that the fakes fail to recreate this accurately. Seems like these guys are a little more clued in to the dark arts of iPhone 6 spotting than their counterparts at TMZ.
But that’s not where the story ends. The gossip site’s post was taken as gospel, with the sheer momentum of the story exhibiting serious reach to the point where the story was picked up by CNBC.
Check out the CNBC Tech Reporter bluff her way through a quick news piece, although to her credit, she does point out that it might not be entirely accurate. Oh wait, she changes her dress half way through? Did they just add an old clip at the end to save their blushes? Priceless…
