The idea is that if the gear is in short supply there might be a huge amount of hysteria over a phone which is not otherwise likely to attract much attention when it comes out.

The rumour states that Job’s Mob wanted to significantly reduce the bezel size around the display on the new iPhone 15 Pro models. The idea is to have a larger display without modifying the physical size of the new devices, which is said to be essentially unchanged from that of their predecessors.

This meant using a different manufacturing process known as low injection pressure over-moulding (LIPO), and the first trial production runs revealed some unexpected issues with screens sourced from LG. The new manufacturing process means Apple must fuse the display into the metal frame before further assembly of other components, which calls for more rigorous reliability testing.

During this stage of development, Foxconn usually manufactures hundreds of thousands of units to see if they can reliably mass-produce the new devices while keeping the rate of defects to a minimum. Apple has been having trouble getting LG displays to pass quality testing, so it is still iterating on the design to improve reliability.

All this seems plausible, however, it is assumed that Apple makes mistakes like this and, when it does, it is always someone else’s fault. Apple has also sourced displays from Samsung which apparently were not affected by the problem. The LG screens are headed towards the iPhone 15 Pro Max so those after smaller cheaper iPhones are not involved.

Another potential issue is the A17 SoC, which is reportedly made using TSMC's next-generation 3 nm process node. Yield rates are said to be hovering around the 55 per cent mark, and TSMC has been slow to ramp up production for the new chips. It may also be more complicated for Apple to procure upgraded zoom camera sensors and larger batteries in large enough quantities to cover the projected demand.

If true, all this does seem to be a disaster for Apple which normally is better organised at this sort of thing. Which is why we are more inclined to think that the stories are designed to whip up a frenzy for the overpriced iPhone 15 which otherwise has very little going for it.