The reason for the white iPhone’s long delay turns out to be exactly what we guessed: the original version turns yellow after time. Nick Bilton of the New York Times’ Bits blog got his hands on a “first-gen” white iPhone and compared it side-by-side with a shiny new one.
Bilton got the phone from Rex Sorgatz of Kinda Sorta Media. Sorgatz paid $1,000 for the phone back when the iPhone 4 first launched, getting it from a guy with “connections to the factory that made the phone in China.”
Comparing the two, we see some design differences — a deeper-set proximity sensor in the new iPhone, and a flush-fitting camera lens in the old one — but the biggest difference is in the color. The new iPhone is pristine white, whilst the year-old model is dirty and yellowing. This is similar to the problem that plagued early white plastic MacBooks.
It could be said that the comparison isn’t fair, and that we should wait to see how these new version hold up with time. Then again, Apple has spent ten months trying to get this thing right, and has surely used rapid-aging tests to lick this problem once and for all.
The real question is why did this happen in the first place? It’s not like Apple doesn’t have any experience making white gadgets.
White iPhone Versus White iPhone [NYT]
See Also:
- White iPhone 4 Not Really Thicker Than Black Model … Or Is It …
- Thicknessgate: White iPhone 0.2 mm Fatter than Black iPhone …
- White iPhone Finally Available, Just 10 Months Late
- White iPhone Delay Explained by Lucky Owner
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