A video of what is believed to be a prototype of Apple’s next-generation iPhone that was found in Vietnam was whizzing around the Internet yesterday.
The gadget, which several tech Web sites have identified as similar to a version found in a bar last month in California, was shown to a mobile phone accessory dealer in Ho Chi Minh City.
“It’s a real Apple product,” said the dealer, Tran Manh Hiep. “I plugged it into iTunes and it recognized it as an Apple device.”
He said the prototype fourth-generation iPhone was not his but was shown to him by a customer on Wednesday. He then filmed it, he said, and posted the video on a forum, Tinh Te, for which he is a moderator.
He did not explain how the device, which has a front-facing camera, arrived in Vietnam.
He said that the iPhone he saw was very similar to the one published on technology blog Gizmodo but seemed “newer,” with small changes such as the absence of two screws on the underside.
According to Gizmodo, the new phone’s features, expected to be unveiled later this year, include a front-facing video camera for video chat, a flash and an improved regular camera with a larger lens.
It also has a flat back instead of curved back, is thinner than the 3GS, is 3g heavier and has a battery that is 16 percent larger.
Separately, China Mobile (中國移動), the world’s biggest cellphone operator, said yesterday it was interested in selling the iPad, and that talks with Apple over the sale of iPhones were still ongoing.
“China Mobile has been in constant talks with Apple over cooperation issues,” Rainie Lei (雷雨), a Hong Kong-based company spokeswoman, said by telephone.
“We hope China Mobile’s subscribers would be able to use Apple’s products such as the iPad and the iPhone,” she said.
China Mobile is developing an electronic book business and company chairman Wang Jianzhou (王建宙) said on Wednesday that the operator was interested in providing e-text on iPad to Chinese users.
Apple has not yet officially launched the iPad in Asia, but a “gray market” trade in the touchscreen portable tablet computer has boomed in stores from Singapore to Seoul to Beijing.
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