It's way too easy to fake a photo of a "new" iPhone

There have been a whole lot of supposedly leaked photos of the mythical 4.7-inch iPhone 6 lately -- or at least bits and pieces of it. A production mold pops up here and a front panel shows up there, and the Internet eats it up because, hey, it's photographic evidence, right? The already grainy photos get filtered through Twitter and other social networks that downgrade the image quality even further, and before long we're left with a low-res picture that is hard to pick apart.

To be clear, I'm not doubting the theory that Apple is indeed working on a 4.7-inch smartphone. Apple clearly wants to make something bigger than the iPhone 5 and 4.7 inches is a happy medium between the current 4-inch display and the maybe-too-big land of the 5-inch crew. But relying on uncredited photos to back up a rumor is something the tech world loves to do, and the trend is even more pronounced when it comes to stories about Apple.

Want a "photo" of the still-rumored 5.5-inch iPhone "phablet"? Coming right up! The photo above was created in photoshop in about 25 minutes. It didn't take much to whip it up, and I'm definitely no Photoshop wizard.

A couple of crappy photos, some Photoshop tweaking, and a noise filter or two and you have yourself a genuine "iPhablet" that has a good chance of catching on with the social media crowd who crave anything that looks even remotely like an Apple product.

You could tear apart the photo and analyze it enough to prove its true identity, but 9 out of 10 people who see the story won't bother. As far as they're concerned, it's as believable as anything else, which is why these types of rumors run rampant.

So whether you're a skeptic by nature or you buy every rumor being sold, this is a friendly reminder to take everything with a grain of salt. Wait, no, a bucket.