You may wish that this iPhone 5 ‘spy shot’ was real, but it’s not

Yes, we’re at that point previous to the announcement of the next iPhone where everyone starts posting every crazy photoshop job that claims to be an iPhone 5 spy shot. I don’t necessarily blame people for being excited, heck, we’re all incredibly jazzed here at TNW to see what Apple has cooked up for its next iPhone too.

But at some point, if you’re going to post obviously fake shots of ‘the next iPhone’, just go ahead and say it outright. Take this shot supposedly captured in the offices of a ‘French carrier’ by a MacRumors forum member that’s making the rounds this morning. This thing is as fake as the day is long, but it’s getting spread everywhere as a ‘possible’,’purported’, or ‘claimed’ shot of the iPhone 5.

I’m not going to do a pixel-by-pixel breakdown or anything because it’s obvious that this thing is an iPhone 4, most likely a Verizon model because of the missing SIM slot, that has been shrunk width-wise in an image editor. I also love how the poster dropped this in there, then realized their mistake and mirrored it horizontally to account for the fact that there were no volume buttons.

I love that the fact that these kinds of fake shots generate so much attention that another MacRumors forum member has already created a cleaner looking version of this fake shot.

Some of the folks here at TNW actually like this smashed version of the iPhone 4 though and wish that it was a real design. I myself am looking forward to a more rounded look, in a return to the comfortable curves of the iPhone 3GS. If my wishes really get fulfilled, it will have a 4″ screen and a glass back and look something more like this:

Now that’s a nice looking fake iPhone 5.