Alleged iPhone 7 Plus in Deep Blue, assembled and working, pops up in a series of high-quality photos

We've been hearing rumors about a new color for the upcoming iPhones for a while now. Reports say that whatever the new finish is, it would replace the current Space Gray, keeping the color choice to 4. First, we were hearing whispers about Deep Blue, then it was Space Black. Then, photos of the 4 finishes of the upcoming iPhones showed the classic Space Gray, Silver, Gold, and Rose Gold, putting a rest to the new color option rumors for a while.

However, those have been rekindled somewhat. A couple of weeks ago, we got a photo of what is allegedly a blacked out mute switch from the iPhone 7 assembly line. Not a lot to go on, but enough to make some believe that Space Black might still be happening.

Today, we get another leak regarding a new color. Allegedly, an iPhone 7 Plus unit in Deep Blue and in full working condition has not only been caught in the wild, but thoroughly photographed. We see the phone from all sides, including the dual speaker grille and lack of 3.5 mm headphone jack on the bottom and the dual camera module on the back. It obviously runs on a beta of iOS 10, as we can spot the new notification cards and the easily recognizable wallpaper — do note that Apple tends to release an entirely fresh set of background images, which differ from the beta's, when it finishes and officially releases a new iOS build. The phone is even compared to the good-old iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus and it is, again, shown that the 2016 Apple phablet will be the same size as the 2015 edition.

Could blue be the "next hip" color? Samsung seems to think so, maybe so does Apple

Whether these photos are legitimate or not is still up in the air. We are around a month off from the official launch of the new iPhones, so it's not hard to imagine that there would be working prototypes somewhere out there. The Deep Blue color in the photos looks very cool and subdued, much more than the over-the-top one we first saw when the finish was rumored about before — it certainly looks like a shade that Apple would choose if it were to make a blue phone. And the fact that Samsung chose to introduce a Coral Blue finish with the Note 7 does seem to suggest that this might be the “new hip” color after Rose Gold got a bit overused in the past year.