White iPhone 4 Delayed Again ? or Forever?

Apple has delayed the white model of the iPhone 4 until spring of 2011, a release date that’s difficult to believe.

The black iPhone 4 hit stores in June, 2010, but the release of the white model was mysteriously postponed — first for a month, then to the end of the year, and now until spring of next year.

“We’re sorry to disappoint customers waiting for the white iPhone again,” an Apple spokeswoman told Reuters, declining to explain the delay. In earlier press releases, Apple said it was facing manufacturing challenges with the white iPhone model.

The white iPhone’s long delay is strange for a company that prides meeting most of its ship dates — Apple often releases products the day Steve Jobs announces them. Also, Apple has released an iPhone upgrade each summer, so a spring release for the iPhone 4 would be odd, since a fifth-generation iPhone would likely be due out three months later. Who would buy one then?

Apple may indeed be planning to cut its losses. Boy Genius Report, who has a solid track record with reporting scoops on cellphone news, claims receiving a tip that Apple is canceling the white iPhone altogether, and that another “delay” will be announced around March leading into the release of the iPhone 5 in June or July.

Though Apple has been mum about details explaining the delay, the departure of Mark Papermaster, Apple’s executive in charge of iPhone hardware, was a telling incident. Apple hired Papermaster in 2008 — a move that his previous employer, IBM, attempted to block to prevent him from divulging secrets about its microchips. (Papermaster was a key player in developing the PowerPC chips used in previous-generation Macs.) Only two years later, in August 2010, Papermaster was gone.

Though Apple has not officially commented on whether Papermaster’s exit was a firing or a resignation, multiple anonymous sources claim he was ousted because of issues with the iPhone 4, including the antenna flaw that led to a media flurry earlier this year and the white iPhone 4’s delay.

What might the problem be with manufacturing? One lucky owner of a white iPhone 4 told blog Pocket Lint that Asian suppliers had shipped white iPhones with a white Home button that didn’t match the color of the faceplate — one of those details that would drive Jobs crazy.

Long story short, if you’re been holding off on buying an iPhone 4 because you want a white model, don’t bother. Even if it does ship in the spring, it’d probably be a bad idea to buy one because the fifth-gen iPhone would come out soon after, and you’d inevitably have buyers’ remorse. We’re pretty sure it’s delayed forever, though. For-e-ver. (See the video below for clarification.)

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