Edible Apple

Well this is somewhat strange.

Reuters today retracted its article which detailed Phil Schiller’s comments dismissing the notion of a cheaper iPhone.

Reuters has withdrawn the story headlined “Apple exec dismisses cheaper phone as a market share grab-report” which was based on a Shanghai Evening News report that was subsequently updated with substantial changes to its content.

It remains unclear if there was a problem with the translation from Schiller’s interview with the Shanghai Evening News or what. Equally confusing is that The Next Web yesterday confirmed the veracity of the original report with folks at Apple.

Perhaps, if I may don a conspiracy hat for a quick moment, the original stories pointing towards a cheaper iPhone were in fact true and Schiller, and by extension Apple, did not want to give Apple critics more ammunition to decry that Apple executives can never be trusted.

Odd, indeed.

As a quick reference point, Schiller allegedly said the following during his interview with the Shanghai Evening News.

“At first, non-smartphones were popular in the Chinese market, now cheap smartphones are more popular and non-smartphones are out. Despite the popularity of cheap smartphones, this will never be the future of Apple’s products. In fact, although Apple’s market share of smartphones is just about 20%, we own the 75% of the profit.