My 2¢. The item on the pallet is not something Apple would currently design. It's extremely disproportionate, and the "arm" or "neck" is too large and the wrong shape. Apple would stick with something along the line of the current imac arm, if they were to stick with the same basic design. Basically, whatever is on that pallet is too ugly for apple currently.
The other object of attention, the monitor in the elevator, is a little more interesting. As far as jpeg artifacts go, the entire side of the box is covered with them, not just around the apple; to me this is not indicative of a bad photoshop job, it's either a good photoshop or not photoshopped at all, either way the 8x8 pixel artifacts, are just that, artifacts, jpeg anomalies from the discrete fourier transforms (or sine transforms, can't remember what jpeg uses) used to compress the image. Also, the angle of the distortion in the apple matches the distortion in the box side itself (whether caused by the camera lens used, or simply warped cardboard), this would be a lot of work for a photoshopper to get right. This is either a powerbook box (as someone already suggested) or the real thing. If someone has a powerbook box with styrofoam, it would be nice to see some pics.
As far as the monitor itself, three possibilities exist in my mind. Cinema display, some other display, or the real thing. Whichever, the item in the picture was definitely in the box and in the elevator, not to say that a little touch-up photoshopping wasn't done. Some have suggested that it's not a cinema display because the apple is on top not on the bottom. It's hard to tell from the picture which way the apple is oriented, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that it is just a cinema display upside down.
However, I really don't think it's a cinema display, since it would be easier to photoshop the other side, which doesn't have the touch-sensitive controls. And the apple on the cinema display is more metallic than white (at least in photos, which is also true of the sides of the cinema displays as well (check the photos on apples site, it's very likely photoshop would not be needed to change the color, and that portion doesn't really look photoshopped anyway). Whether or not the apple was photoshopped in, is up in the air, imo. I tend to think a photoshopped apple would actually be more distinct than what is currently visible.
Imo, the most likely photoshopped part is the bottom bezel on the screen, the portion that is in the box. Having zoomed in on that portion, it seemed that that portion had a grain to it, instead of a lightly speckled appearance, as seen throughout the picture on the other edges, as as would be expected of aluminum. That would match very nicely with a display someone posted a few pages back that had a row of buttons along one bezel. The result looks very much like a clone tool job, or even worse, one long drag of the smudge tool finger.
So my final opinion is something like this, if its a fake, all the components are real, and only a little photoshop to clean up some details, and I would heavily favor a non mac monitor over the cinema display as the stand-in in the fake category. I can also see it being real, while it may not be what people were hoping for it to look like, it does fit the current apple aesthetic, and it pretty well matches all the rumors we've been hearing from ts and others. Which is precisely the problem with this whole ordeal, if it's a fake wouldn't the prankster want to make it look as much like the rumors as possible?, and if it looks like the rumors descriptions, then we're more likely to believe it's real. In the end, based on photographic evidence, I would have to say it's a toss-up, and really, attempting to determine the veracity of any photo rumor based on the photo itself is generally foolishness precisely because of the above mentioned reasons. I guess I'm inclined to believe it's a good fake mostly because we haven't heard anything of this schmoe's untimely death following the obvious recognition that he broke into this box to get photos. I mean, if we know one thing about apple, it's that nobody with a camera would ever be allowed anywhere near a box, and even if he did manage to do so, his tampering would be obvious. Security(secrecy) is number one for apple.
