Rumors of Apple developing a cheaper iPhone reached a fever pitch this week (here's a refresher!), with a new report confirming the development seemingly every day. Apple's Phil Schiller is here to (attempt to, anyway) squash that rumor dead.

In an interview with the Shanghai Evening News (translation courtesy of The Next Web), the company's senior vice president of marketing said this regarding the possibility of a cheaper iPhone:

"Every product that Apple creates, we consider using only the best technology available. This includes the production pipeline, the Retina display, the unibody design, to provide the best product to the market."

"Despite the popularity of cheap smartphones, this will never be the future of Apple's products," he added. "In fact, although Apple's market share of smartphones is just about 20 percent, we own the 75 percent of the profit."

While those words seem to definitively rule out an iPhone Mini (or what have you), it's probably no surprise that a number of outlets aren't taking Schiller's words at face value. Apple likes to think of itself as a maker of premium products, and probably doesn't want to associate any of them with the word "cheap." It doesn't just sell phones or computers; it sells an identity, a personality. Schiller may simply be referring to the quality of a product rather than its price, so even though he rules out "cheap" phones there may still be room for "inexpensive" ones.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple considering a phone shell of polycarbonate plastic instead of the aluminum-based one the iPhone 5 currently employs. Bloomberg, meanwhile reported on the company's efforts to bring a smaller-scale iPhone down into a range between $99 and $149.

In the past, Apple has made a number of pronouncements dismissing certain products or features only to later reveal the exact product it said would never come out. Most recently, the company came out against larger screen sizes before unveiling the iPhone 5. Before the iPad Mini was publicized, Apple said it would never make a 7-inch tablet.

UPDATE: For what it's worth, Reuters has retracted its story on the topic, saying "substantial changes" were recently made to the content first published in the Shanghai Evening News.