White iPhone delayed until spring 2011

This is the third delay since Apple launched the iPhone 4 in June

Bad news for those of you who have been considering getting an iPhone but have been holding off because you would prefer a device with less pigmentation.  Apple told Reuters late Tuesday evening that it will be delaying the release of the white iPhone 4 until spring 2011, which marks the third time that Apple has delayed the release of the white iPhone since launching the iPhone 4 in June.

"We're sorry to disappoint customers waiting for the white iPhone again," said Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller to Reuters reporters.

Curiously, Apple has offered no real explanation as to why the white iPhone is being delayed, other than to say that it was "more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected."

The first delay was announced at the time of the iPhone 4 launch in June, when antennagate rumors started swirling.  Some of suggested that the white iPhone has experienced color matching problems, and others have reported that light bleeds through, but a number of reporters played with the white iPhone at the iPhone 4 launch and didn’t notice anything wrong with it.

In July, Apple announced that the white iPhone would be released “later this year,” again with no explanation as to why.  But this latest delay poses some other challenges.  For one thing, it doesn’t make much sense for Apple to release a white iPhone 4 right before releasing the iPhone 5 (presumably, considering Apple has released a new, upgraded iPhone every summer).  I smell another delay coming in the spring.  It seems to make more sense for Apple to just scrap the white iPhone 4 altogether and release a white iPhone 5.

And then there are the Verizon iPhone rumors to be taken into account.  Rumor has it that Apple is working on a CDMA-compatible iPhone for Verizon that will be released in January.  Would Apple bother to release a white iPhone at the same time as a Verizon iPhone and an iPhone 5?  The iPhone scene would be very…noisy. 

For those of us who take pride in our more open-minded iPhone color-blindness, the delay is meaningless.  IPhone unit sales rose 91% to 14.1 million in the last quarter, and the iPhone is now available in 89 countries.

I can really only think of one reason why a white iPhone would actually be preferable to a black one: on a white iPhone, gross, smudgy fingerprints wouldn’t be as noticeable.

Image source: intomobile.com