Why This iPhone 6 Costs $70,000

Why This iPhone 6 Costs $70,000

What appears to be an iPhone 6 prototype popped up yesterday on eBay and, though the listing has now been taken down, bids reached $US50,100 ($69,798). The seller, who described the phone as “vintage”, said they bought it from a friend. It appears to be missing an FCC logo, serial number and IMEI number.

Image: eBay

Why This iPhone 6 Costs $70,000
Image: eBay

Image: eBay

The seller added:

From what I know it runs a debugging OS called SwitchBoard and features a red lightning dock port with a serial number of C39NW00KG876.

According to 9to5Mac, SwitchBoard, a type of internal Apple software, is much easier to hack than stock iOS, and devices with it installed “fetch insanely high prices”.

Why This iPhone 6 Costs $70,000
Image: eBay

Image: eBay

Indeed, there’s a good chance this one will go higher: In 2014, another alleged prototype was on the market for $US86,000 ($119,812). However, it turns out that it wasn’t a real prototype — just an unfinished phone. It was later sold for $US11,000 ($15,325).

Similarly, this latest prototype may not even be a prototype at all, although Apple will want probably to sniff around anyway. At time of writing it was unclear why the listing was removed. But hey, if you have the cash on hand, why not? Just don’t leave it in a bar.

Why This iPhone 6 Costs $70,000
Image: eBay

Image: eBay


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