Beware, Apple leakers: The hoaxer who created a fake Apple invite for the iPhone 16 event says he’ll probably try to pull off a similar prank in the future. Lorenzo, a 14-year-old video editor from Italy, says he created the bogus invite in about 10 minutes out of boredom when he was sick. Then he sent the image to a known leaker — and watched as the fake document whipped up a frenzy in the Apple rumor mill.
“I feel like leaks can be boring sometimes so I want to spice it up,” he told Cult of Mac in a direct message. “Maybe by putting more effort into making a good concept next time.”
Fake iPhone 16 invite fools the internet
The world of Apple leaks and rumors is filled with many players. Reporters cite anonymous sources. Developers dig into Apple betas and find revealing bits of code. And leakers serve up rumors, vetted with varying degrees of due diligence.
Lorenzo’s fake Apple invite, which he sent to leaker Majin Bu this week, looked just real enough to convince some publications to write it up as potentially legit. (Cult of Mac covered the “leak” with some skepticism.)
The counterfeit invite succeeded because it melded several of the most prominent iPhone 16 rumors — a new Capture button for operating the camera, a bronze titanium color for the Pro models — along with an educated guess about when Apple might hold its next big product event. And it packaged all that info into a fake invite that followed Apple’s standard format.
A self-taught, 14-year-old Apple fan
Illustration: Lorenzo
After news publications picked up Majin Bu’s post, the fake iPhone 16 invite quickly made the rounds of the Apple leakosphere. The amount of attention generated by his quickly produced mockup shocked Lorenzo.
“I was quite surprised,” he told Cult of Mac. “I thought my invite looked fake enough.”
Lorenzo said he’s been into tech, and especially into Apple products, since he was pretty young. He keeps up on Apple rumors by scrolling through X and reading articles that show up on his timeline.
The mostly self-taught artist said he “used Figma to make the actual invite and Microsoft Copilot to generate the texture that I used for the logo.” Then he used his knowledge of the Apple rumors ecosystem to target Majin Bu, an Apple leaker with more than 53,000 followers on X. Lorenzo sent the leaker the image, along with a sketchy story for how he obtained it.
Majin Bu published the fake iPhone 16 invite Monday on X, while admitting, “I have no way of verifying that this information is real, but it all seems very plausible considering the latest news.”
“I chose him mainly because, despite his dubious track record, people still trust him,” Lorenzo said. “And because of his track record I was more sure that my ‘leak’ would end up on his page.”
Inside the Apple leaks ecosystem
When contacted by Cult of Mac, Majin Bu expressed skepticism about Lorenzo’s image, even though the leaker ultimately decided to publish it anyway.
“Actually I am skeptical about all the things I publish because you can never be sure of anything,” said Majin Bu in a private message exchange on X.
How does Majin Bu, who previously shared information in the Apple Internal community, vet Apple rumors?
“I usually try to understand if what that person says could be true by comparing myself with other informants of mine or by following my intuition,” he wrote.
“In any case there is a potentially high margin of error, therefore I have always invited people not to believe what I publish, also because I am the first to have doubts,” he told Cult of Mac.
“However, often people unknown to the world have turned out to be bearers of correct information, most of the informants I have had in the past are not trustworthy people, many have written to me by chance.”
Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, a veteran Apple reporter with a track record of vetted scoops, was incredulous the fake invite got posted with zero vetting.
1) Apple event invites never leak in advance. That would essentially be impossible.
2) Shocked/not shocked this was covered by several publications. Less surprised that the original poster published it with zero diligence and a claim of authority. https://t.co/P32LRcQuP1
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) August 20, 2024
iPhone 16 invite hoaxer reveals his trick … and plans to do it again
Lorenzo himself brought the whole thing to a crashing halt Tuesday by confessing on X.
“Fun fact,” he wrote on X. “I made the ‘leaked’ Apple Event invite in less than 10 minutes using figma and an Ai generated texture and I sent it to the leaker just because I was bored.”
He even posted a video run-through of his creative process:
Fun fact: i made the "leaked" Apple Event invite in less than 10 minutes using figma and an Ai generated texture
and i sent it to the leaker just because i was bored pic.twitter.com/3tX9QgUy4p— Lore (@lorevfx) August 20, 2024
After Lorenzo revealed that the “leak” was a hoax, Majin Bu complimented the young Italian artist’s skills. “I appreciate your effort though,” Majin Bu wrote Tuesday. “If you need someone for graphics contact this guy.”
Lorenzo said the fake iPhone 16 invite was his first effort at ginning up something like this.
“I had been wanting to do something similar since last year,” he said, “but with more effort put into it.”
Lorenzo said he might change up his approach next time to make the effort more of a collaboration — or he might even go solo.
“I will actually make sure to tell the leaker what I want to do,” he said. “Maybe I won’t even contact another person and I’ll do everything by myself.”
