According to Slash Gear (via Into Mobile via Venture Beat via the Chinese Twittersphere), 25 year old Foxconn employee Sun Danyong committed suicide last Thursday after losing an early 4th generation iPhone prototype he was supposed to ship to Apple HQ. I’m not entirely sure I believe this “My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night” type of source on this, but if true, it sounds like the 4th gen iPhone might include more than just a compass, so I am rather excited.
And of course deeply saddened if it is true.
But I doubt it.
Probably my favorite part of this story is the picture of a random dead Chinese man (not Sun Danyong) that Intomobile decided to publish (above), perhaps to help us all visualize what a Chinese man who committed suicide might look like. I’m not saying the China labor scene isn’t evil, and the pressure to keep a decent job isn’t intense, and maybe bosses over there DO randomly search your house, torture you, and drive you to jump out a window, but this story just stinks of a Twitter rumor gone viral. Maybe Danyong DID work for Foxconn, or maybe he did commit suicide, but until I hear something from at LEAST as credible a source as someone’s Facebook, I am going to hold off on believing this.
Until then, I will just have to imagine how cool an iPhone worth dying for would be.
