14 DAY TRIAL // A guy with a lot of time on his hands (and a lot of patience) has worked up a replica of the official Apple web site to try and trick YouTube viewers that they are actually watching a screen capture of the ‘iPhone 5 website’ which Apple had supposedly leaked online by mistake.
Titled “iPhone 5 Website Leaked” and listing some 447,827 hits at the time of this writing, the video in question should not fool those who are familiar with Apple methodology, as well as with the company’s marketing materials.
The clip features pretty much every iPhone 5 rumor crammed inside a nicely crafted (but fake) web site residing on the user’s desktop (as we will disclose further down below).
The alleged iPhone 5 web site says the next-generation iPhone features Apple’s A5 silicon, an 8 megapixel camera, a 30% thinner and 18% lighter aluminum unibody chassis, a larger display, black and white options for the front glass, and a tapered design.
The mockups presented on the fake site also show the LED flash situated a tad farther away from the camera lens, likely aiming to corroborate rumors that Apple was working on a relocated flash.
Even the Tech Specs tab works, showing the same mockups with various technical indicators, just like an official Apple web site.
Towards the end of the video, the user aims to give the impression that said links no longer work, with Apple seemingly realizing they had accidentally leaked their own iPhone 5 web site.
Needless to point out, this is not the case. I think there’s probably a better chance of Apple losing a prototype unit of the handset, rather than leak the entire iPhone 5 web site.
Second of all, the video embedded below clearly shows that whatever is going on at apple.com/iphone is actually stemming from the user’s desktop.
For a fraction of a second, the beginning of the clip shows “file:///Users/peter/Desktop/iPhone 5/Website Pictures/home.html” in the address bar.
This discovery was made by the first commenter to the video (@ResidentO). Thanks to this finding, we also know that whoever is behind this ‘leak’ is called Peter.
And yes, as some of you may have guessed, the feat was achieved by simply replacing some imagery with concept iPhone designs and references to the A5 chip, the 8MP camera etc.
Another big giveaway that the site was fake is the advertising of the iPhone 5 with a ‘No service” sign where the carrier name should be.
There is absolutely no way Apple would advertise any iPhone like that, even if it had but one operator to support it.
All in all, it’s a pretty elaborate fake, but a sloppy one at that. We couldn’t let it pass, though. After all, we wouldn’t want Apple fans to get excited over nothing.
