Apple never released an official statement specifying why the white iPhone 4 was so slow to get out of the gate, but there's never a shortage of rumors or speculation when Apple's involved. According to the Cult of Mac's Leander Kahney, who cited "a source with connections to Apple who asked to remain anonymous," were a big reason for the delay. More specifically, the iPhone's white glass case allowed light to seep back into the body and flood the camera's sensor, producing overexposed photos.

"A source with connections to Apple who asked to remain anonymous" isn't exactly the gold standard in terms of qualified attribution, but Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak is about as good a source as it gets. During earlier this year, Wozniak said that pictures taken with his prerelease modded white iPhone 4--made with "defective parts" from Apple's first production run on the white iPhone--took "bad flash photos" that didn't match up to those taken with the black iPhone.

Once the white iPhone 4 finally became available, an by a Japanese-language blog revealed that the camera module was noticeably different from the one found in the black iPhone 4. The white iPhone's camera lens looked to be a bit more recessed, possibly to reduce the distance between the glass and the sensor and eliminate or reduce the light-leakage issue.

For most people, none of that really matters. What does matter is whether one color of iPhone 4 or the other is better for photo and video quality; with the , that's a more important question than it may seem on the surface.