[UPDATE: The “fanboy” has now confessed that he faked his exchange with Jobs, reportedly after his father read this post. See here.]

Ah, the white iPhone 4.

Announced on June 7. Missing at the June 24 launch. Promised by the end of July by Steve Jobs himself at his July 16 “Antennagate” press conference. Pushed back to “later this year” in a press release issued the next week (“more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected”). Possibly the reason, some speculated, that the head of the iPhone division was relieved of his duties in early August.

All of which leads to the latest e-mail exchange with Steve (“unverified”) Jobs, the chattiest CEO on the Internet.

The first part comes from a San Bernardino, Calif., high school student.

Hello Steve, My name is Nathan, I’m a high school student from San Bernardino. I also happen to be one of your biggest fan and a total Apple fanboy and proud to be I’ve been saving up money to buy the new iphone 4. I want the white one but Apple said it won’t be available until later this year. I know you must be asked this question hundreds of times a day but do you think we can expect to get the white iphone for xmas?
I hope you can answer. Thank you Steve.

The second part comes from someone who appears to be Steve Jobs, sent from his iPhone:

Christmas is later this year.

“But,” adds Mobiles DNA‘s Jenny Lewis, who posted the purported exchange (in somewhat fractured English), “This an unverified email, we cannot take it 100% confirmed source of the news being true.”

[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]