The white iPhone 4 is finally due to hit the shelves at the end of this month and word has started to filter out about just why we’ve had to wait. There’s been plenty of column inches dedicated to fractiousness at Foxconn but it turns out the white iPhone 4 problems stem from a less well known supplier called Lens Technology, which is, as the name suggests, responsible for the phone’s glass panels. Here’s the tale behind the white iPhone 4 delay…
A report in the charmingly-named Chinese paper, the 21st Century Business Herald, quotes a worker from Lens Technology’s quality control department explaining why the white iPhone 4 has been held up. Though Lens turns out parts for plenty of other firms (including Nokia, Motorola and Samsung), it’s been struggling to get the white iPhone 4 covers right.
It seems the issue is all down to getting the coating for the white iPhone 4 right. It needs to opaque enough to please Jony Ive’s quest for a perfect shade of white but also avoid being too thick and disrupting the digitiser overlay that’s added later.
After all the iPhone 4 antenna hoohah, it’s not surprising that Apple is taking its time to get the white iPhone 4 right but the problems looks likely to make the pale model a rarity for sometime.
Industry ?rumours suggest that Lens Technology can only meet half of Apple’s demand and it’s holding up the whole production line. There’s a 3-week shipping date for the iPhone 4 in black right now and it’s likely the white iPhone 4 will take even longer to reach you once Apple opens up orders.
Let us know: are you hanging on for a white iPhone 4? Or have you cracked and gone for standard black instead?
