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Apple Genius Bar Didn't Recognize MacBook Pro 3G Prototype, Apple Now Wants it Back
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How long is the statutes of limitation in this case? Silly Government, looking for cash.
Ya Rely!
Apple wants, of course its real!
Shows how average many of those "Geniuses" are.
They just enter the #'s and read what the system spits out.
Had he any smarts he would have realized it was too similar to MBP, and of course extremely difficult to make an Apple fake.
Imagine the guy who took it to Apple store and forced its return to Frega. I bet he his kicking himself because he had a potentially $70,000 machine!
Definitely the funniest part about this is that the Apple Store thought it was modified by a third party... haha, how did they not see that antenna.. or did they write it off as a 3rd party modification too?
Man, I wanna land my hands on an Apple prototype... that'd just be cool.
LOL! I guess that shop has at least one non-genius working there. Hindsight is twenty-twenty of course, but I would like to think I would have noticed that: 1) it was way advanced technology, 2) it fit together too well to be amateur work 3) the customer clearly didn't know what it was and must have gotten it somewhere else....ergo, do some calling around.
And yes, I think the bid my be legit. A sharp, observant engineer may have caught it and fed it to his company which, in turn, would pay a lot to learn what was inside that little puppy.
Rich
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In both cases, someone with the authority to take stolen goods into their possession failed to do so. The Genius, as a representative of the rightful owner, and the police officer, as a representative of the state whose job it is to take _any_ stolen goods into his possession and then return them to their rightful owner. No difference at all.
Bona fide purchaser perhaps??????????????? Unless Apple can prove that the person who sold it to him did not have a right to sell it and they can prove that buyer should have known that the person did not have the right to sell it. (At least that is what I remember from school. Been a while for that area of law.)
This analysis would be a wonderful introduction for the upcoming biography on Steven Jobs.
I love Apple and appreciate what SJ has done for the company but one has to admit that Apple has a somewhat neurotic corporate culture. Steve Jobs has the "gift of grace", mystique, panache, etc that is common amongst some of the greatest leaders of both the revered and despised types in human history. I could make comparisons but... I am sure most of you can use your imaginations. After all I would hate to turn things into a political "normative" debate.
How long have you been practicing corporate law? Or perhaps you've been a judge in these types of cases? Fill us in.
Not really. If it was a internal product ID, the Genus bar might not be aware of it - I wouldn't give them access to internal model numbers - only the ones that refer to actual products.
Second, it was a 4 year old prototype, if it was never developed, it was probably never flagged as *stolen* unless they specifically were aware of the theft. Until recently that wasn't probably known and it could have been flagged as any one of these things.
But the Genius bar is only equipped with valid product ID's - they wouldn't be privy to internally developed products. There would be no reason to. Furthermore, they can't confiscate devices that they receive anyway. They would have to contact the authorities.
There could be legal issues with a radio device not authorized by the FCC, plus it's sheer principal. Apple sees the laptop as something not legitimately obtained and is their property.
It's an Apple prototype, and therefor "defacto" stolen property. Even if the guy was unaware he was buying stolen property, it is still ultimately property that was wrongfully removed from Apple's possession. The law is easily with Apple on this one, and the so-called owner could easily end up with only what he paid for it originally in reimbursement.
If someone steals from you, even if it passes through multiple sales, it is still legally yours, and if discovered by police, it would be returned to you, the rightful owner, as long as the evidence was clear that you were the original owner it had been stolen from. It won't be too tough to prove that this was Apple property.
If someone steals from you, even if it passes through multiple sales, it is still legally yours, and if discovered by police, it would be returned to you, the rightful owner, as long as the evidence was clear that you were the original owner it had been stolen from. It won't be too tough to prove that this was Apple property.
Not so genius...
"Apple Genius Bar Didn't Recognize MacBook Pro 3G Prototype"
Not SO genius after all...
"Apple Genius Bar Didn't Recognize MacBook Pro 3G Prototype"
Not SO genius after all...
Why would you take a prototype to the Apple Store?
I would've handled things so much better (less public), wait a couple of years and use the money to invest in some Apple stock and pay off my student loans, this guy was just plain stupid
I would've handled things so much better (less public), wait a couple of years and use the money to invest in some Apple stock and pay off my student loans, this guy was just plain stupid
I doubt that his job entails determining what is fake and what may be a counterfeit. His Job is to determine if it is an Apple product that they sell and support and to fix it.
Perhaps most of you aren't living in the US? Here a person is innocent until proven guilty, regardless of what internet lawyers and judges think who have no internal knowledge of the incident.
My guess is that Apple employees who are given the privilege of checking out confidential prototypes from a top-secret lab can only do so after signing a lengthy document swearing that they will not show the device to third-parties, etc.
Apple does not randomly pass out prototypes to employees. This is a company where unreleased hardware is not paraded around the hallways. When a prototype device is removed from a lab and transported within the company, it is draped in a black cloth.
Likewise, Apple's manufacturing partners aren't allowed to give away prototype units. They are under contract to assemble those devices; they are Apple's property.
This device in question was illegally obtained from Apple or one of its manufacturing partners.
If this is what happened and the employee broke the NDA, then Apple owns the laptop. How long have you worked for Apple?
You're finally getting it after god knows how many pages of comments.
This prototype was always Apple's property and will always be in perpetuity. If it is not in Apple's possession or in the possession of someone under an NDA, it has been illegally obtained.
We will never know if an employee or manufacturing partner illegally sold the unit or if it was stolen. Either way, whoever acquired the device did so illegally.
My gut feeling is that this prototype device can from a manufacturing partner's lab, not one in Cupertino. Let's face it, Foxconn employees don't get compensated as well as Apple employees do, there's probably more temptation for the former to find a way to a quick buck.
Apple's ownership of prototypes is no different than really any other high-tech hardware company (HP, Cisco, TiVo, whoever). Prototypes are company confidential property and are tools used in the development of the final shipping product. They aren't employee samples.
