Prototype iPhone was left at bar by Apple software engineer - Page 3

Maybe the GPS isn't working yet on that prototype phone.

Haha. Some low life bounty hunter/ex-hell's angel on a harley will poppin wheelies while laughin maniacally as he streaks down the highway hot on Gray's trail......shotgun N grenades in tote.

From this point forward, if I ever do something really, really, really stupid and get called on it, I will respond by saying, "I underestimated how good German beer is."

This is hilarious - from Gizmodo, the guy who found TRIED TO CALL APPLE TO RETURN IT, and was brushed off:

"He reached for a phone and called a lot of Apple numbers and tried to find someone who was at least willing to transfer his call to the right person, but no luck. No one took him seriously and all he got for his troubles was a ticket number."

Good job Apple - karma really sucks sometimes don't it?

But there's a major part of me -- indeed, the shareholder part -- that is also getting tried of these types of SJ annoyances and control-freakishness. Apple has become too big and important to be subject to hissy fits by one individual (Fwiw: I happen to think he is a genius, and have nothing but the utmost respect for him).

I was comfortably past Apple being conflated with Steve Jobs, but looks like like we are right back there again. It worries me.

Perhaps this is where the wisdom, maturity, and counsel of the Board comes in.

Ha! The board members are handpicked to be favorable to Jobs. Plus, I think they're scared of him.
The ones that stood up to him to make sure Jobs stayed in check have either moved on or past away.

Fair enough, but I'd argue that Gizmodo is hardly deserving of loveable monikers like "scrappy."

Anyone who knows them, knows that they have no integrity and few brains between them. Their entire "career" is a long series of juvenile stunts and insults. I read one insightful, intelligent article there once by Jesus Diaz, but that's pretty much it. The rest is hateful nonsense, smugly served by some of the most selfish foul-mouthed porn-freaks I've ever talked to.

I agree that things being what they are the Gizmodo guys will probably get off scott free, but I think they shouldn't. They should go to jail.

If I thought that were true, I'd sell my shares NOW.

While they are certainly not antagonists, I don't think the Board is a bunch of pushovers.

Not in today's governance environment.

the guy who lost the phone is f***ed. i bet that was his dream job and he was just responsible for one of the most colossal leaks in apple history. I feel bad for him. I'm sure if he gets the phone back he'll have less penalties to endure, but he's still gonna loose his job. may not be able to get another like it ever or at least for a while.

I don't know their history or their predilections, to be honest.

I've only been to their website in the past couple of months -- since the iPad, basically -- and I have to say that I find their stories to be quite reasonable and informative. Perhaps it is their temporary (or new) persona. Certainly nothing that has jumped out at me as suggesting hatefulness, or a lack of integrity or brains!

PS: I think I am going to call it a day! Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings......

I've learned one thing too...

Got to get me to Germany! Guten Tag Frauleins...

Agreed. The gizmodo bunch are really a bunch of foul-mouthed high schoolers. What keeps them in business though is that they seriously know their tech hands down. And they know it in an aggressive way which other tech blogs can't get close to.
You have to give em that.

But their childish antics gets them into too much trouble.

More likely has to do with iPhone OS 4.0 beta and its known issue with Find My iPhone, which is not yet working in the beta. Maybe they used Exchange remote wipe.

Folks here are getting way too deep with the SJ mentality. I'm an AAPL holder as well and as far as I'm concerned, this is simply a case of a very secret product "A" being sloppily handled by someone who will be forever labeled the "village idiot" if this story is in fact true.

Apple, like any company, has every right to safeguard the secrecy of their products. Does Apple go too far? That would be left to one's personal opinion. I personally think that in the cutthroat business of consumer technology where one product can literally define the next direction, one has to maintain absolute secrecy for fear that the competition will get their copy-machines fired up. Any company would lose their advantage if secrecy was not implemented. The "open" community just does not get this because they don't have their own money on the line.

With all the things being developed at Apple's skunkworks lab, who is to say this is even the 2010 4G phone? This could be a candidate for 2011 or even 2012. Perhaps it could even be simply an internal proof-of-concept. The truth is no one knows what Apple has planned. I will be on the floor laughing if all these turned out to be a ruse or simply gossip to throw pie at the media. The folks at Gizmodo certainly deserve it. If they knew they had what was considered trade secrets and or stolen property, I hope they get the pants sued off from them. Bunch of low-life National Enquirer paparazzi vermin.

It certainly will not change my opinion of whether to wait for June or hold off if the new phone does not have the same features as this prototype. I believe the public at large will not even dwell on this issue since only the nerds and geeks are the ones paying attention to these articles.

Regardless if these photos are legit, I will still get my next iPhone in June to replace my aging 2G iPhone. What has transpired today will have no effect to me or to anyone else that actually has a life. I believe most consumers will think the same way.

If it's not your iPad/iPhone, then you have it illegally, and the legal owner has the right to disable it through whatever defenses you put up. That's what remote wipe is set up to do.

On the other hand, if it's your iPad/iPhone, nobody can disable it except you.

The phone was lost on March 18th. He's apparently still employed at Apple. I empathize easily, but if I were him I would be prefer to be fired or would have quit. He was put into a gigantic position of trust and essentially nukes Apple's entire marketing of the next gen iPhone, something Apple keeps dearly close to the vest, over a few beers.

Maybe he'll get a second chance, but I don't have much sympathy for him at all. He lost a trade secret over a few beers. He better be wallowing in despair and better have quit drinking permanently.

You can't underestimate it. He basically destroyed Apple's reputation, aura, carefully honed brand over a few beers. That's an unimaginable hit. It gave competitors a 2 month lead on a response. It will take years for Apple to regain it's veil on its marketing strategy. Years.

Sympathise all you want, but the consequences simply isn't knowing what the 2010 iPhone is going to be 2 months early. Oh well such is life. This does mean Apple is going to be locked up pretty tight for awhile, but then again when the atmosphere is like this mistakes can be made easier. It's simply easier before this when everything appears to be a smooth running engine.

Assuming for a second this is neither a hoax, nor a controlled leak, this kid should be fired and sued by Apple for causing irreparable damage to Apple. Of course in several weeks he'll show up on a secret video working on the line at the Foxconn plant in China.

putting the name might give an air of credibility to it.

however what surprises me is that it was lost a month ago and the finder never just took it to an Apple store guessing they could track it down by the serial or some such.

Also, Gizmodo admits to paying for it, that doesn't really look good after the whole Valleywag tablet games.

I really can't help wondering if this is all a hoax, by Gizmodo. They aren't above it.


it only has to be online for the wipe to work. doesn't matter how

You know, there is a fundamental principle here. Whatever the authenticity of the story, if you find something that someone else has lost, surely you try to return it to them or hand it in to the police, don't you? If it is a scarf or something similarly trivial and difficult to return that's been left on a train that's different, but an expensive device that will almost certainly contain important personal data on it? The guy that 'picked it up' (or was that picked it out of his pocket?) with the intention of personal gain, was stealing it. So many people in these and similar forums use the word 'steal' inappropriately when referring to copyright infringement, which is a far more complex matter, but not many seem troubled by the prime face act of stealing by the unnamed party here. An indication of the lack of moral scruple in these times perhaps?

You sound like a first year law student. A + B = C. Not quite the case. Gizmodo allegedly paid to handle the device (i.e. take pictures), not own it. They even called the owner to "return it". Even though they probably only called to get a confirmation on the device they still appear to have the intention to return in. So no there was no sale of stolen property.

I'm sure there might be something illegal about the whole situation, maybe something to do with exposing trade secrets. I'm sure Gizmodo's attorneys know the risks of what they did and made a gamble. It's interesting that they didnt post information about the internal parts, other than the battery size and SD card. No RAM information, no processor type, nothing really to tell us about the new inner-workings other than what is already apparent from the outside (i.e. something that would be apparent to a "finder").

I'm by no means an expert on this but its pretty ridiculous to say these people are criminally liable. Its not like someone broke into apple, stole a iPhone 4G and sold it to the highest bidder. There was a lost phone, some pictures were taken, and the phone is going to be returned.

Was für ein geiles Weib!!!

The story is a little more complicated than that, it says the unnamed person tried several times to find the owner and tried to return it to Apple. I'd suggest going over to the site in question to read the alleged story as they said rather than through someone else's restatements, but then, that would be more undeserved traffic. I don't know if any of it is true, but I find it better to at least try to get the other side of the story before placing judgement.

I don't know, something about this just seems very peculiar. As tight as the lid is at Apple, you really think they would let something like this leak out? I mean, it could in fact be legit, but still, it seems farfetched. Then again, what do I know. I'm just saying, it looks sketchy as hell. Has to be intentional. Wouldn't be the first from Apple though. But if it is legitimate, one things for damn sure, somebody is getting f***ing fired.

Wow! This is a nice phone...

I think it looks good! I'll wait to buy a new phone until this gets out!

This story just seems odd.

Why would Apple let a kid (and yes a 27YO software engineer is a kid) off campus with a top secret device with explicit directives? You know, like don't leave it in a bar, dumbass.

Why would Apple simply brick the device rather than use Find My iPhone?

Can anyone at the bar collaborate the story?

Why does the phone look so shitty?

It'll be interesting the see how this story unfolds but there are a lot of things that just don't make sense.

Sounds like this could be Matt Damon's next movie.

Can you tell us what Gizmodo's motive was in your opinion? You don't think it was profit? Enlighten us as to why they'd spend $5-$10K. Do you think they sincerely believed the phone belonged to the seller and Apple had no interest in it?

I believe if I buy something I know to be stolen, that's criminal right there. It makes matters even worse if my motive was profit.

A commenter over on Roughly Drafted opined that Gizmodo's tone changed dramatically half-way through the incident, presumably after they spoke with a real attorney who let them know just how hot the water was they'd gotten themselves into. For example, it was only then that they started saying they had made serious efforts to return the phone to Apple. Plausible? I don't know.

I won't predict what's going to happen, but it still looks like a criminal case to me.

Still Think This Is All A Hoax?

1) 27 year old that works on iPhone baseband software, i.e. the software that allows you to make and receive calls. It makes perfect sense why he would be one of the people to field test the phone. Being 27 he has probably been out of college since 22, thus its been quite a while so I would hardly consider him a apple newby or not old enough to carry a prototype phone

2) Apple would brick the phone because what the hell is find my iphone going to do? Get them within a block radius? Or best case they find the exact house it is located? They get the police who get a warrant to get into the house to get the phone back. All of this happening before the possessor has a chance to put the phone into airplane mode? I doubt it. Someone earlier said why didnt they call it first. Ok they call the phone say give it back, then the possessor gets smart and says nope and puts the phone in airplane mode, thus no more remote whip option. Apple cut its losses and saved iPhone 4.0 from being fully explosed.

3) I doubt people at the bar even knew what was going on. Maybe there are a few people that happened to be at that bar on the night it was left and happen to keep up on iphone rumors. I doubt those people would have thought twice at seeing an iphone in public. I'm sure half the people in that bar had iphones.

4) It looks "shitty" because it is probably a prototype case. Yeah there are a couple weird seams on the phone which make perfect sense that the phone is a prototype that they can disassemble easily.


I would put money on the phone looking exactly the same without the seams. No way it is a fake, no way it is a "shell" that they will swap out for another. From the pictures it looks way to refined to just be a shell that will get swapped.

A side note, i wish they could make the back of the phone like the wifi ipad. Unfortunately the reason for this i hear is that cell signals dont do to well through aluminum (apparently neither do wifi but i guess its not as bad). That would be one awesome looking phone through. I'm excited for this one even without the unibody back.

The photo's clearly show FCC markings on the back.

Doesn't that mean this can be verified by checking with them?

Or do they have a special non-public pre-registration system so that prototype devices can be legally used while still being covered by trade secret?

The FCC registration numbers are just placeholders with a bunch of 'X's. They aren't valid.

Device manufacturers can request for device registration confidentiality from the FCC. Apple has done this before.

The letter just claims one thing: that the object in question belongs to Apple.

It could have been two tin cans connected by string, a sack of beans, or coffee mug with an Apple logo.

Apple is not admitting that this is an iPhone prototype, nor are they saying that this is the final retail design for the next-generation iPhone.

My guess is that this device was near to the final retail case design. Maybe not exact, but probably pretty close, just due to the very compact space usage viewed from the photos. Since the device went missing a month ago, there might be some ongoing software changes. It looks like Gizmodo was never able to actually run the device, so they won't really know how far this device was in terms of software maturity, but three months before anticipated launch still is a fair amount of time for some changes to be added.

Who cares what Gizmodo's motive was? Yeah it was money, everything any site like them does is for money. Profit has nothing to do with it. I would guess (99% sure guess) that whatever california statute deals with receipt of stolen property it has nothing to do with payment or profit or consideration exchanged. It doesnt matter who they thought the phone belonged to, they obviously knew it was an apple product that is clearly not released yet. Thats why they gave the apple employee a call.

You are right, if you buy something that you know is stolen there will probably be some criminal liability. But no it does not make matters worse if "the motive was profit", who gives a shit if they paid or not. The key is if the item was stolen and if they wanted possession. I'm sure the issue of possession is complicated so im not going to hazard a guess as to California law on possession of stolen property or lost property. All in all IT WAS NOT STOLEN. All the available information tends to show that it was LOST and there was some attempt to return it.

After they spoke with a "real attorney"? People are always giving their two cents about what is hot water or illegal. One thing about law is that very few things are cut and dry, so anyone that says its black and white is full of shit.

Like I said in my previous post, it's interesting that they left out some facts about the phone that would be very useful. Like the ram, HD, processor. My bet is that they consulted an attorney before they posted anything. They were probably told not to expose anything that couldn't be seen other than a general look to find out who the owner was. Obviously the outside would be fare game. The inside would also probably be fine since the back of the phone had a bunch of XXXXX for any identifying numbers. It could be easily argued that they opened it to find out some serial number (like most other phones on the market).

I think if they were doing this without advice from an attorney it would be much more sloppy and there would be pictures of every single piece of the phone and we would know all the tech specs.

But again, get over your whole "motive" idea. What matters is what happened not why it happened. But really, are you a 1L?????? I'm betting you are, or you just watch a lot of Law & Order.

Dear All,

After reading all the comments, especially the ones that call Gizmodo behavior dirty and poor in obtaining the phone, I must really laugh and say that I love Apple and enjoy all the products that are released (verdict still out on the iPad), but the truth of matter is this:

If this is not a marketing stunt, then the software engineer had poor judgement to carry the phone off Apple campus, especially to public bar. Yes we are all human, so I can understand, but still poor judgement. I doubt Apple will fire him, but he will get a stern talking to and the policies concerning unreleased products will be reviewed by Apple to ensure this does not happen again.

Gizmodo did what every other newspaper/Tech site/rating seeking group would do. They saw an opportunity for a news scoop and took that opportunity, fair play to them and no hard feelings. Only concern is publishing the software engineer's name, that is low blow and that person should sue them, if he has a case.

Again there will be more speculation about the new iPhone and this leak only adds to that speculation and wether intentional or not, gives Apple tremendous free air time for summer launch.

Not going to get on my moral high horse, since Apple taught me a long time ago, that company is fallible!

Please stop, do you think Apple going send a letter from their TOP legal person to Gizmodo for 'two tin cans by string, sack of beans, or coffee mug with an apple logo'. Apple does not have to admit anything, actions speak louder than words.

We can all conclude that the phone is part of the next development at what stage, we do not know, but it is serious enough for BIGWIG legal man to send a letter, which was very to the point.

His question was "do you still think its a hoax?"i.e. is it a fake product created by someone other than apple. You are right though it does confirm it belongs to apple. Would you expect them to say "Hey you have our finished iphone 4G that is the exact same unit we will sell in June"

Probably not.

Interesting letter though. I would love to meet apple's general counsel to give him back the phone. Actually I would try to get a meeting with Steve Jobs instead. Although 5K wouldnt be worth it for me to sell it for pictures to anyone. I would get a hold of someone important at apple and try to get a lunch with Steve out of it. I'm sure he would meet with someone who wanted to return the phone without taking any pictures of it. Who knows maybe there would be a job out of it. I know I would love to hire someone that is that honest that wouldn't trade a lost phone for 5K.

It's suspicious that Steve would put in a call to them to return it - even more suspicious when the call from Steve is reported by the NYT. I mean wow that's some pretty tricky stuff right there getting the CEO to beg in public like that! What a chess master eh?

I'm not a 1L. I used to be married to one and then she became a prosecutor. Now I'm a widower so I can't get her opinion. My recollection is that motive matters: "Even a dog knows the difference between being tripped over and being kicked".

With due respect, I believe it was stolen the minute the finder decided to sell it rather than make a reasonable effort to return it to its rightful owner.

But time will tell. You seem very sure of yourself and your opinions. I'm interested to see what happens, but I'm making no predictions.

Actually, I think there is a good chance that this was a deliberate decoy by Apple.

I don't doubt that the leaked unit was a plausible, functional iPhone engineering sample.

I do have serious doubts about the leaked unit representing the next-generation iPhone in terms of industrial design. My biggest question is whether or not the Apple engineer who lost the device was a proactive participant, or just a clueless pawn in a larger game of media manipulation. Since he appears to be a regular line employee, my gut instinct is that he falls into the latter category.

I've heard the theory, but it doesn't hold logical water.

Why does Apple need to 'leak things'? If they want attention, they announce a press conference and 90% of the internet freaks itself out wondering the secret motivations behind a press conference announcement.

But don't let me ruin someone's conspiracy fantasies.