Another iPhone 4G prototype shows up, bears all including Apple’s own A4 chip | Hacker News Reader

Another iPhone 4G prototype shows up, bears all including Apple’s own A4 chip

crunchgear.com

I don't buy that this is real...the lack of response on the screen is suspicious. Wouldn't you want to show off the fancy new software too if you'd found a fully functional prototype?

Asian phone clone shops are really good, and if they already had a model to work from on the Giz post, I would posit it's entirely possible that it's a clone.

It seems to be a hardware prototype only, with some boot check and no system rom.

If that's true then the background is 100% out of character for Apple. I don't speak Vietnamese, so perhaps he explains that part (i.e., he loaded his own software on it), but I don't think an Apple-provided diagnostic would look like that.

I believe it. Apple device diagnostic modes are usually extremely rough. You can put iPods into diagnostic mode. It's just unadorned text, and, on older iPods at least, you had to click the forward and back buttons to scroll through the menus. I remember seeing a different iPhone test screen that was similarly unrefined.

Apple's 'character' is to have things looking good by release, not necessarily internally.

e.g. my old iPod nano in diagnostic mode: http://blog.jgc.org/2006/09/ipod-nano-in-diagnostic-mode.htm...

Where is the flaming fireball on the screen?

I've seen their diagnostic modes plenty of times, and they don't look like that. I've seen them on iPods and on my laptop, but they don't have a shiny background on them that's totally outside their design aesthetic. That's what doesn't look right.

The guy in the video says it's brought back (usually from the States) by a friend of his. His explanation for the unresponsive screen is due to Apple disabling the device remotely, probably triggered by failure to input some passcode .

He just describes how the new phone is a little taller but not as wide as previous gen. He also mentions that both the front and back are made of glass.

That's about what I can make out of the noisy background.

Is it just me, or are there more homophone mixups on HN lately?

It was originally an error on the Crunchgear article, but they fixed it later on.

This is actually evidenced by the url of the article too, good catch!

Is it necessarily wrong? I looked at it for a second too long before clicking... and while I'm sure it's a typo, I think it does work out if you understand it to mean "contains everything, including the A4"

Yes, but acceptance of obvious typos won't do anything to raise net culture's writing skills standards.

Given that it's so clear that "reveals everything" was intended, yes. It's generous of you to stretch the meaning to accomodate the mistake, though.

And also, it's a "sneak peak" because it represents the highest point of mobile technology achievement. But I think that makes sense only if you start "loosing your mind."

I don't think they really need to wow people on release, the ipad already had plenty of information out there beforehand. Everyone has a fair idea of what to expect from the next iphone, no one is going to be overly surprised that there moving towards the A4 for new mobile devices.

Despite this article not offering much new info, it was worth it for the closing comment.

> "Alright, jerks. iPhone 4G, $199 on both AT&T and Verizon"

Better: "Alright, jerks. iPhone 4G, $299, available unlocked only"

Not going to happen. That would entirely destroy Apple's profits on it. Not to mention that even if it were unlocked it would only have 3G on AT&T's network, and wouldn't run at all on Verizon, so that's somewhat pointless.

Don't forget there is a whole planet outside the US borders.

Has there been any confirmation at all that it has a 4G radio? Also isn't ATT not rolling out LTE until next year?

clearly the best part of the video is having "how deep is your love" heard as ambience music

So, who is apple going to blame for 'stealing' this one?

Apple, Steve, it's been a long time, but this is what happens when you're #1. Just live with it.

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