Mystery box lands in Australian Apple stores - with 3G iPhone inside?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 06 June 2008 21:29

Your IT - Mobility

Authorised Australian Apple reseller stores have received a mystery brown box containing a warning label not to open them until June 10 – which is June 9 in the US. Speculation is running rife that a 3G iPhone could be inside, or a dummy phone, or just advertising material. Curiouser and curiouser!

As the clock tick-tocks ever closer to June 9 in the US, which is June 10 in Australia, and the day that Steve Jobs strides upon the WWDC stage to unveil what everyone expects will be the 3G iPhone – and potentially one other iPhone model – mystery boxes have arrived down under.

UPDATE: The iPhone 3G has launched! Full details here.

Original story follows:

The lucky recipients are authorised Apple reseller stores – for there are no official Apple stores yet open in Australia, despite the very first, in Sydney, officially expected to open sometime in June – and naturally, everyone wants to know what’s inside.

Sadly, no-one has yet publicly opened one of the boxes, not only because of the fear of retribution from both Apple Australia, and Apple US, but because of a warning on the box which reads: “SUBJECT TO TERMS OF NDA - DO NOT OPEN UNTIL TUESDAY JUNE 10th 2008”.

The scoop comes courtesy of Mactalk.com.au, the “Australian Macintosh Community” forums, who received the ‘blacked out’ photo, saying it is “from a very reliable source who can not be named for obvious reasons (fear of assassination by the Apple Secret Police I presume).”

MacTalk also says that “resellers across the country have also received similar packages. As seen by the picture, its contents are protected under NDA until Tuesday June 10 - does that date ring a bell to anyone?”

MacTalk’s source apparently “strongly believes that the package contains the much coveted 3G iPhone.”

There are 20 pages of comments at the MacTalk site, with some saying it’s just brochures and other advertising material, others suggesting it’s just a plastic dummy iPhone, and others still noting that Apple has “done this kind of thing” overseas in the past.

Please continue to page 2!