Blurrycam Theatre Presents: The classically fake iPod classic

We get purported product leak pics sent to us all the time, and of course, the vast majority of them are fake. In an era when anyone with free time and a copy of Photoshop can slap together something that's convincing at first glance, we're sort of jaded when we look at these Blurrycam photos. In fact, even Gizmodo's epic iPhone 4 leak last year had me and half my TUAW colleagues saying, "Fake, fake, fakedy faaaaaake," right up until Apple demanded the device be returned.

It's only the truly spectacular pics that warrant us firing up our CSI rigs (Zoom. Enhance. Zoom. Enhance) in an attempt to prove if the pic's been faked or not. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, there's the monstrosity pictured here, which sent the entire TUAW team into paroxysms of laughter when we saw it.

A reader sent us this image after a friendly email where he said he had a line on the next iPod classic. "Contrary to what some people believe there will be a new one," he said. "It will have an option for either a 256GB or 320GB hard drive. It will feature the interface of the iPod Nano all while keeping the clickwheel. Also, the screen size will increase by nearly eliminating the bezel. This device is catered to serious music lovers who still love keeping with the times."

Sounded reasonable to us, so we requested pics. And the iPod wasn't the only thing about this that was classic. "Worst. Photoshop. EVER," one member of our team replied, and we didn't even have to Zoom or Enhance to make that call. Check out some detail on the full-sized image, as it was sent to us:

All too easy.

I'll forgive the pic's blurriness, especially since the metadata (which our tipster forgot to scrub out) says the original pic was taken with an iPod touch. I'll also forgive our photo prankster for neglecting to strip out the Adobe Photoshop CS3 markers from the metadata (P.S. to the sender: your GPS data is still embedded in the image you sent us, too. Nice house!). The pic's onscreen icons are crooked with respect to the device itself, but I'll even give that a pass. It's that corner detail in the pic above, where the layered-on image from an iPod nano screen extends beyond the iPod classic in the background layer, that elevates this from your everyday Blurrycam photo to the high art of the Fakes Hall of Fame.