Gold iPhone 5 referred to internally as Kardashian Phone

Nick Bilton, a New York Times columnist and author of "Hatching Twitter," offered this gem on his own Twitter account this morning about the gold-plated version of the iPhone 5s.

A source at Apple told me while they were making the gold iPhone it was referred to internally as "The Kardashian Phone."

— Nick Bilton (@nickbilton) October 18, 2013

Initial sales of the 24-karat gold plated iPhone -- which is identical to a standard iPhone 5S save for the gold-plated case -- sold for as much as $10,000 in eBay resales initially. Current list price is about $1000.

One writer speculated that the informal appellation could be a kind of honor for the reality television star and socialite. Kardashian bought an earlier model gold iPhone 5 and boasted of it on Twitter. Other reporters seemed faintly embarrassed by the whole line of consideration.