Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is highly skilled at stirring the flames of speculation about its upcoming releases to fever pitch, mostly by remaining silent and keeping most of its plans top secret. Today, a blurry photograph released by a French website, claiming to be a picture of iPhone 6 batteries, has started rumors of everything from a new form factor for the telephone to a July release of the mobile device. Whether the photograph was deliberately leaked or snapped and published surreptitiously by an employee is unknown.
The French site itself, NWE or “NoWhereElse.fr,” appears to specialize in all kinds of leaks, spoilers, and rumors about everything from the latest tech to planned video games, speculation about which actor is likely to get a role in an upcoming movie, and plot twists in popular television series. As might be expected, its front page is currently abuzz with rumors related to Apple Inc. (AAPL) in general, and the iPhone 6 in particular.
A freshly published article on the site (in original or translated form) makes much of two different aspects of the leaked photograph. The picture does appear to show long, narrow iPhone batteries quite similar to other batteries used in Apple’s flagship smartphone, but with a few physical oddities setting them apart. The batteries are located in a white plastic production tray. The other aspect is the timing of the leak, in April rather than in June like the last leaked battery photo, something that the article’s author, Steve Hemmerstoffer, makes much of.
In the pictures, a perforated metallic piece of unknown function is visible alongside the positive and negative terminals of the batteries, a feature missing from current iPhone batteries. Mr. Hemmerstoffer speculates that the piece has something to do with mounting the battery, and could indicate an innovative form factor. If the form factor has changed, it could mean Apple’s (AAPL) engineers made significant alterations to the iPhone 6’s architecture – perhaps related to the probable 4.7 inch screen, or maybe indicating that the A8 chipset will indeed be quad core.
Mr. Hemmerstoffer’s other, rather more conjectural, notion is that the timing of the battery photo leak indicates when the iPhone is likely to be launched in retail. He notes that in the case of the iPhone 5S, a leaked battery photo appeared on the Internet three months before the product’s release, in late June, 2013. Following the uncertain logic that battery production goes into full swing exactly three months before launch, that would make today’s leak, in April, indicate a mid to late July release date for the iPhone 6.
As with every impending Apple Inc. (AAPL) release, the current countdown to the iPhone 6 fills the Internet with excited rumors and speculative chatter. Today’s battery photograph is possibly suggestive, but only time will tell if it truly gives a glimpse beneath Apple’s cloak of secrecy and provides clues both to the iPhone 6’s design and its probable release date.
