iPhone 5 Not Necessarily Delayed Because Of Deadly Fire At Apple Components Supplier Factory

You may have heard in the iPhone 5 news this week about a deadly fire that broke out in one Apple’s top Chinese components suppliers’ factories, and how the loss of life and inventory would affect both the iPad 2 and iPhone 5. Blogs like Computerworld reported that the fire in Foxconn’s iPad 2 warehouse directly affected iPad 2 assembly, stating by way of collecting reports from across the blogosphere that: “This tragedy will have a great impact on the iPad 2 production line,” and that “two people were killed and 16 injured, 3 seriously.”
While at first glance this piece would seem to be a prime example of reliable journalism, a closer look at the piece’s title reveals how misleading and irresponsible the crux of this report truly is: “iPhone 5 release date delay, iPad 2 freeze: Foxconn factory fire.”
Huh? What’s this about the iPhone 5?
Folks, there is absolutely no solid evidence to support that this explosion will affect the release of the iPhone 5, or that Foxconn has even begun to manufacture iPhone 5 components. It is yet another way of reconstituting Apple-related news to make an impact on the iPhone 5 hype cycle.
Read the Computerworld article and all of the other corresponding reports: there is no actual reporting about the iPhone 5 being affected as a result of the explosion. All of the news on the Foxconn explosion and fire focuses on the causes of the explosion, the casualties, and its potential impact on the iPad 2.
Ascribing an impact to the iPhone 5 is beyond speculative — its presumptuous.
Just to make sure, I went back into the annals of Google News to find what I could on anything recent that points to active production of components for the iPhone 5. The last story to make its rounds was on March 18th, when a rumor surfaced via 9 to 5 Mac that a Foxconn staffer had leaked photos of prototypes, which results in a slew of new purported iPhone 5 photos and specs.
Prototypes are one thing — full-on production is another.
Aside from that rumor, there has been little else to suggest that there is any production activity going on at Foxconn. And given the arrest of several Foxconn staffers recently over leaking photos of the iPad 2 a year before its release, it is even doubtful that 9 to 5 Mac‘s Foxconn source would be brave enough to deliver a true photo of an iPhone prototype.
Is it possible that the recent Foxconn explosion could have affected the iPhone 5 production timetable in some way? Sure, it’s a possibility. It’s also possible that the tsunami in Japan affected it. Or a mosquito flapping its wings in Rhode Island that led to some improbable chain-reaction that could shift the release of the iPhone 5. But all in all, it is the iPad 2 that is likely to be impacted by the explosion and not some phantom, fabled iPhone — so why do tech news sources present it to us as breaking iPhone 5 news?
Oh yes, now I remember: it gets the iPhone community buzzing again.