Friday fakes: The best of the bogus

TUAW presents to you the best of the obviously fake device shots we've seen in the last couple of weeks. On occasion they're beautiful renderings that are worth a second glance, other times they're out of focus shots that tipsters swear were taken quickly at a meeting on the Apple campus. In any case, they're a lot of fun.

Let's begin with this gem from the French blog Le Journal du Geek. In a post titled "Encore un peu de MacBook Touch?" ("Again a little MacBook Touch?"), we see what looks like a page from an Apple website:

This fake is fabulous! It shows the device being about the size of what everyone would like to see, with about a 10" diagonal display. They give it a plausible name instead of the lame "iPad" moniker, the power button is located away from the middle of the device, and the faux photos show it being used with a dock, as a music keyboard in GarageBand, and flipping from landscape to portrait. Very cool, and they even endow the MacBook touch with drool-worthy specs on the website.

Next, AppleTell provides us with a teaser shot of some sort of über-iPhone:

MagSafe charging port? Check. USB port? Ditto. Audio line in/out ports? Affirmative. Reflections below the mockups? You betcha! I don't see an iSight on the front for doing those 4G / Wi-Fi video calls on the Verizon network, but you can't win 'em all.

The next entry has actually been around for months (posted in February on Flickr, then appeared on WiReD.com) but it's so cheesy I just can't keep myself from posting it:

Somehow, I just don't see Steve Jobs letting a device with room for 86 or more icons out the door... The guy who put this together has a knack for photoshopping bizarre photos, and this is one of the best joke "iTablets" I've seen simply because it is so absurd.

Another French tech website, Nowhereelse.fr, featured a post with an amazingly good looking fake:

There's only one big issue here -- they seem to be mixing their metaphors. The device looks like a big iPhone, has a button in the middle of the bottom bezel like an iPhone, but it's running what appears to be a stock version of Mac OS X 10.5? Nahhhh. We've got to give this one a "magnifique" for the effort put into it, but a "merde" when it comes to reality.

As our closer for this week, here's a full frontal shot! Uh, not that kind of full frontal shot. We received an email with not just one photo of an alleged iPod touch with two cameras -- the regular rear camera and a "frontal cam" -- but a whopping three photos. I love the shiny case on this iPod touch, complete with scratches, since it adds a genuine touch to the photo.

If you happen to come across any good faux photos of iTablets / iPads, iPod touches, AppleTV replacements, a levitating iMac, or anything else you can think of, send it our way. In fact, if you send us a good obvious fake, we may end up posting it here. Let us know about your favorite photo here, and we'll contact you to tell you how to send us your picture.