The past few days, Engadget has been going around and around with photos of the supposed new iPhone 4G.  Supposedly the phone was “Lost” in a bar in San Jose, and of course, they just happen to have photos of it.  Number one, I doubt anyone would even have the phone outside of the Apple premises unless the phone was really close to release and they were testing it.  This just does not happen without Apple taking serious precautions to not “Lose” their equipment or have someone inadvertently  photograph the item.

Secondly, how would they have it long enough to take apart and get the specs on.  The new supposed iPhone 4G has 80gb and looks like another popular phone on the market.  Apple does not copy other people’s standards, they create the standards.

Now a story in Apple Incider is saying that Gizmodo paid $10,000 for photos of the phone and hands on time.  This is a more likely scenario that Engadget also paid for the same rights, since Apple’s legal department has not slapped them with a cease and desist order yet.  One only has to look at Engadget’s original story to know it is fully of holes.  At least the people behind Gizmodo had the guts to come out and say, “Yeah we paid!” after they had produced an elaborate back story on the “Lost” phone.

The traditional Apple style is just because they design something does not mean it is necessarily going to be released.  But of course, if people are willing to pay Apple for a look at something that they are going to release, I am sure Apple is glad to have them pay and then write their dribble to help Apple whip up the masses of Apple fans into a frenzy so that when the product is finally released, they sell a million in the first week!  If you ask me, all this fake story, paying for information smacks of the payola scandal journalism that have been wracking the blogosphere lately.  It used to be that journalists just dug in deep and asked the right questions to get the scoop.  Now they pay money to get the story!