Meet Sonny Dickson: Apple’s Newest Teen Bete Noir

Australian teen Sonny Dickson, who lives in his parent’s Melbourne home, has been on a tear throughout 2013, publishing scores of photos showing Apple’s unreleased iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C in various states of undress and disassembly.

“I’ve been doing this for many years, so I know what looks fake and what’s not,” Dickson, a high school graduate, told Reuters. “I trust what [my Chinese sources] say to me — but I also back up the story with other people to make sure what I’m posting is legit.”

And, the 12 hour days Dickson has been putting into his website are paying off. According to Reuters, the iPhone spy photo wünder kind made $1,850 last month in ad revenue by attracting one million visitors.

Dickson’s photos have been republished by scores of blogs worldwide

“Most of the traffic is from the US — I’ve had 590 hits from Apple and about 53 from US Homeland Security in August,” he said, adding that he logged IP addresses from Washington DC and Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino.

Sonny Dickson: A Familiar Story

Does anyone remember Nick Ciarelli? From 1999 through roughly 2007, this American teen’s Think Secret blog uncovered and published Cupertino’s trade secrets with stunning accuracy.

Another example of an Apple-focussed teen terror is 19-year-old 9 to 5 Mac blogger Mark Gurman, who has an uncanny ability for uncovering and parsing rumors.

Whereas Gurman is very active, a court settlement with Apple forced the shutdown of Think Secret in 2008 and Ciarelli hasn’t been heard from since. Then again, he was a student at Princeton at the time — perhaps he found other things to do.

Here’s hoping Dickson and, for that matter, Gurman go on to enjoy long and productive careers — lord knows the rest of us won’t have much of anything interesting to read if they don’t…

What’s your take?