How fast is the world shrinking? It used to be sufficiently mind-boggling just that the Apple iPhone is designed in Sunnyvale, Ca., made in China and shipped back out to gadget-lovers around the world.

The woman at work (Photo from Macrumors.com)
Now, the image of a cute factory worker seems to have set a new standard.

Last week, a British user of the MacRumors.com forum wrote that a surprising photo showed up on the home screen of a brand new iPhone after it had been activated on iTunes—a young Asian woman in pink and white striped uniform, smiling and making a “V” sign at the camera.

“It would appear that someone on the production line was having a bit of fun — has anyone else found this?,” wrote the author, known as markm49uk, who posted the “home screen” image along with two others of the same woman found on the new iPhone.

Within days, the photos, and the woman behind them, had gone viral and global. An English-language Web site — iphonegirl.net — was quickly registered in the United States to highlight photos of the mystery woman and other accidental iPhone photos. Then the news spread to China, where netizens began to track her down. Many feared that she would be fired for striking a playful pose on the job.

Her employer would be Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that makes iPhones for Apple in Shenzhen. Yesterday, the China Daily reported that the company had labeled the incident a “beautiful mistake” and gave assurances that the mystery worker’s job is safe.

“She is an assembly worker in the mobile phone testing department and she is still working there. But she has requested us not to make her name public and we will respect her decision,” Liu Kun, a Foxconn spokesman, told the China Daily. Mr. Liu said the woman was a migrant worker from Hunan province but declined to give further details.

Don’t expect to find more smiles from southern China on future iPhones. Mr. Liu said that from now on, all iPhone’s cameras will be tested and any similar photos will be deleted. “Apple and Foxconn staff have started a joint probe into the incident,” he added — somewhat ominously, to our ears.

source:THE WALL STREET JOURNAL