Tonight at an NYC tech event I spotted one of the rarest and most sought after handsets ever: the white iPhone 4. It was in use, not under glass or held by a high ranking Apple official.
The fabled device was in the hands of a person who wasn’t an Apple employee but was able to call in a favor from one. Apparently the white iPhone 4 was (or is) available on the Apple campus.
It was mentioned that the reason the phone never reached mass production was because two different manufacturers produced the plastic button and glass front/back plates. The problem reportedly had to do with keeping the color consistent when using different materials and suppliers. Matching the shade and translucency of the white must have been enough of a challenge that Apple’s quality control never approved the phone for a wide release.