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Was this photo taken with an iPhone 5?

The data hidden in this photo suggests it was snapped using the iPhone 5's camera. But what clues can be gleaned?

Luke Westaway Senior editor
Luke Westaway is a senior editor at CNET and writer/ presenter of Adventures in Tech, a thrilling gadget show produced in our London office. Luke's focus is on keeping you in the loop with a mix of video, features, expert opinion and analysis.
Luke Westaway
2 min read

A photo has surfaced online, seemingly snapped using Apple's imminent iPhone 5 at Apple's Cupertino headquarters. And wouldn't you know it, the data hidden within the picture hints at a more powerful camera for the next-gen mobile.

Examination of the EXIF data (information embedded in a photo at the point of capture), tells that the photo -- which shows a rather appetising array of sushi -- appears to have been taken using an iPhone 4.

As spotter of the photo Pocketnow has noted however, the lens is recorded as a 4.3mm f/2.4 affair, which is a wider aperture and longer focal length than the iPhone 4's 3.85mm f2.8 lens.

While the image has been cropped it was originally at a resolution of 3,264x2,448, which is just shy of 8-megapixels, and finally the GPS data in the photo points to Apple's California campus. No doubt the canteen specifically.

Click here to see a larger image, which contains slightly more plate.

Is this fake?

Quite possibly -- faking an image's EXIF data can be done, so there's no way of knowing for sure whether this photo was really taken with an iPhone 5. Still, the photo itself looks fairly glorious -- those are some brilliant oranges coming through on the salmon, while the cucumber and wasabi offer a selection of dazzling greens.

Here's hoping Apple is nigiri'ing up to blow us away with some high-powered camera tech when the iPhone 5 finally launches. That is, if it's not too busy katsu'ing everyone.

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