Update on that report on the Samsung L870 slider phone using Apple’s Safari web browser: turns out it ain’t true after all. Or something like that.

Engadget reports that Samsung’s takin’ it all back:

Actually, L870 is equipped with S60 OSS browser, also known as S60 safari browser because both are using same webcore platform. Sorry again for the unclear specification, and bothering you with this.”

Hmph. Ooooooookay.

Something smells mighty fishy here. Either Apple lowered the boom on Samsung for spoiling the surprise and renegged on the browser deal, or Samsung’s PR guys can’t even get their act (or names) together.

As Thomas Ricker of Engadget wryly points out, “the S60 browser has never been known, even informally, as the ‘S60 Safari browser’. “