Gold iPhone

Chinese merchants are offering a cheap alternative to the gold iPhone 5s, and the new marketing technique seems to be working. Online stores like taobao.com are selling $2 gold stickers that transform any iPhone into a gold iPhone. The Wall Street Journal reports that "thousands of the stickers have been sold" in China, where " the color gold symbolizes wealth."

Merchants have been advertising the stickers as an affordable alternative to buying an entirely new phone. One ads reads: “Dear, you don’t need to sell your kidney for the new iPhone. Instead of paying 5288 yuan, you only need to spend 35 yuan to make your iPhone 5 look like a golden iPhone 5s in seconds.”

A 16GB iPhone 5s is around $863.84 in China, because mobile phones are not subsidized by cellular providers like they are in the US.

Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C on Tuesday, September 10th at its headquarters in Cupertino, California. The iPhone 5S is the rumored successor to the iPhone 5, and the iPhone 5C is Apple's rumored plastic low-cost device. Here's what the rumor mill is saying about the iPhone 5S.

Design:

Apple fans are preparing themselves for another "boring" iPhone S-model launch. However, Apple is expected to spice things up with the announcement of a gold iPhone model, and the company has completely redesigned its OS. The radical new design of iOS 7 will help most people forget that the new iPhone looks exactly like the iPhone 5.

T-Mobile has reportedly blacked out employee vacations between September 20th and 22nd, according to TMO News. Employee vacation blackouts normally occur around big product launches to ensure there are enough employees around to assist customers. The only known upcoming announcement is the Samsung Galaxy Note III on September 4th, but it is more likely T-Mobile is preparing for the launch of the rumored iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C.

Apple is expected to announce both the iPhone 5S and low cost iPhone 5C on September 10th. Apple typically announces new devices on a Tuesday or Wednesday before releasing them on a following Friday. This means a September 20th release date would fall in place with previous Apple product launches.

Rumors of a gold iPhone have been floating around since June, but no one has been taking them seriously, until now. Citing "sources in a position to know," and other blogs such as iMore, the normally reliable John Paczkowski of AllThingsD, claims Apple will release an “elegant gold tone" iPhone in September. But why?

As iMore points out, the rumored iPhone 5S is only expected to receive a bump internally, not externally. Perhaps Apple is just trying to spice up what could potentially be perceived as another "boring" iPhone S model launch by adding a third color option. According to Paczkowski, Apple probably chose gold because it's "the easiest colors to anodize," and it is a "sought-after color option at the higher end of markets like China."