Is this the new iPhone 5? Images published on a Chinese tech blog purportedly show “leaked” photos of the unannounced, unreleased, unavailable Apple iPhone 5 -- the hotly anticipated next version of the device that rewrote the rules for smartphone makers. (Martin Hajek)
The images show a sleek, two-tone design, described by popular tech blog Gizmodo as a shocking change. The site's editors came around, however, admitting that “the first appearance of the stylized, 16/9 design with its unibody … looks kinda beautiful.” (Martin Hajek)
Or did, before pulling down the post -- fooled by the phony knock-offs of a 36-year-old industrial designer. “It’s been amazing and a lot of fun to see how many 'knowledgable' people fell for them,” Dutch designer Martin Hajek, who made the series of images seen here, told FoxNews.com. (Martin Hajek)
Gizmodo wasn't the only blog to fall for his pictures. They have been posted on about a dozen popular sites so far, including BGR.com, Ubergizmo, Apple Insider, and more. “It's a testimony to how embedded Apple has become in our daily life,” he said. (Martin Hajek)
The images are a series of renderings Hajek created and posted to his Flickr site based on leaked images he had seen on various tech websites. He describes his passion for smartphones and tech design as his hobby. (Martin Hajek)
“As a (former) industrial designer I like to play around with 3D modelling and visualizing,” Hajek told FoxNews.com. “Apple's unreleased products lend themselves perfectly to play with.” (Martin Hajek)
Hajek works as an engineer for a large Japanese consumer electronics company he declined to name. But he cut his teeth at GRO design, a small design consultancy in the Netherlands, and still lives in Utrecht, “dead-center” in the Netherlands. “One of my previous employers at GRO design attended the same college in the UK at the same time as Jonathan Ive did,” he noted. (Martin Hajek)
So which version of the iPhone does Hajek carry around? “I’m actually ashamed to say that our company's choice of cellphone is a Blackberry Bold 9780,” he told FoxNews.com, “which I hate with a passion.” (Martin Hajek)
Hajek has put the 3D model he used to create the series of images up for sale, "for those interested in playing around with this interesting design," he said. It's up for grabs on the <a href="http://3dexport.com/3dmodel-iphone-5-prototype-55736.htm">3Dexport site</a>. (Martin Hajek)