The “Fully Assembled iPhone 5 Leak” Was a Fake – 3D Renderings

3D design expert Martin uit Utrecht used his talent to trick tech publications around the world that the iPhone 5 had finally been leaked, fully assembled, complete with iOS 6 loaded on it.

It had occurred to us that an AT&T logo had no place in a Chinese leak, but we went along and did the reporting, since it’s in our job description (and in our blood). Yet we couldn’t let our readers go on faith, so we told them to ingest those images with a fairly-sized grain of salt. We specifically noted that this was a “potential” leak. And we were right to do so, because the photos we thought depicted a fully assembled iPhone 5 were actually highly-elaborated computer-generated renderings based on the various leaked photos and videos these past few weeks. Utrecht modeled his “leak” in Rhinoceros 3D. “I even managed to fool Gizmodo!” he wrote on his Flickr photostream. “You would think Gizmodo of all blogs would be able to tell a leaked prototype from a leaked rendering! After I pointed it out to Gizmodo the post disappeared faster than Steve Jobs could say 'one more thing.’”

The leak was particularly convincing because of the clever lighting techniques used by Utrecht during rendition. Light seemed to naturally bounce off the (fake) device’s shiny Gorilla glass display, as well as off the back stripes that have a sleek finish. Had we not been so mesmerized by the quality of the images, the matte back plate could have acted as a giveaway, since it seemed a lot darker than what we’d seen in the actual hardware leaks. We might as well congratulate Utrecht for his elaborated scam, but we’d appreciate it if he directed his talent towards more useful activities in the future. You got us, Martin.

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