What Happened to White iPhone?

Apple may have addressed the issue of antennagate by offering free iPhone cases to its customers, but we don’t seem to be getting any closer to the White iPhone’s release date. Apple has pushed back shipping date for white iPhone over and over again. One has to wonder what the reasons are for such a move. According to BusinessWeek, Apple may be buying itself time to come up with a solution for iPhone’s antenna issues. After all, if it’s going to make people wait for the white iPhone, it may as well rectify the problem in those units:

If I was a betting man, I’d guess that Apple’s white iPhone arrives fairly close to Sept. 30. That’s the date when Apple’s free bumper case program currently expires. Which raises another question: Why does it expire on that date? One reason is that Apple likely feels no further obligation to address the “Antennagate” issues beyond that, since customers at that point should arguably know full well about potential signal issues when holding the device a certain way.

It is very interesting that Apple intends to end its free case program on September 30th. The antenna problem is not going to magically disappear by that date. So we have to assume that Apple is doing something to permanently fix iPhone 4’s antenna issue (if that’s even possible). Engadget seems to believe there is a simpler answer to this puzzle: iPhone is in demand and Apple partners can’t keep up:

Specifically, the factory’s still working out the perfect combination of paint thickness and opacity — the former to ensure the next sub-contractor has enough clearance for the digitizer overlay, and the latter for the absolute whiteness that Jony Ive and co. strive for… Even if Apple does deliver the new batch of phones on the promised date, what about meeting the potential huge demand? According to another contractor down the iPhone assembly stream, Lens’ current production capacity only meets half of Apple’s demand, thus becoming a major bottleneck for the entire iPhone 4 production pipeline.

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The truth probably lies somewhere in between. It is not clear how Apple can come up with a permanent fix for its white iPhones without opening yet another can of worms. Let us not forget that Apple did not exactly own up to its mistakes as far as iPhone 4’s antenna is concerned. Is the white iPhone worth waiting for? If you can wait till Apple starts shipping that phone, you probably do not need a new iPhone.