We have heard a few rumors over the past week stating that the iPhone 5S and iPad mini 2 would feature a release date in fall, but both devices might miss out on the popular black option. We can understand why this might be the case considering our iPhone 5 and millions of others have been scratching easy, but to do away with the black option seems a little crazy in our opinion.

We reached our to one of our contact’s in the Apple supply line, and they had this to say, “the Black & Slate iPhone 5 has seen some design issues with easy scratching, but these will be fixed next-generation with a slightly different black iPhone 5S“. It is pretty obvious about the scratching as this has been widely reported, but it’s good news to hear that Apple is working on an improvement.

One brand called iColorOS has been building their brand in 2012 and this year with leaked parts they obtained from China. While these parts point to new colors, our readers should understand the SIM tray color is not a way to tell the overall color of the new iPhone 5S. The SIM tray could be a totally different color to the external design itself.

We agree that new color options will arrive at the iPhone 5S launch, but our sources and even common sense point to a black option being available as well, so don’t believe websites telling you it won’t be available on both the iPad mini 2 and iPhone 5S.

You will notice most of the iOS 7 images featured on Apple’s website are white handsets, and this is purely thanks to that color working best on their website for design purposes. You might have noticed the Black & Slate iPhone 5 running iOS 7 in a number of promotional videos since the Apple keynote.

Bottom-line: you will get black options with the iPad mini 2 and iPhone 5S, although you can expect the phone to scratch a lot less. It is also worth noting this is one of the most popular options for the current iPhone 5.

If you could choose any color for your iPhone 5S or iPad mini 2, what color would you choose?