Apple Genius Bar Didn't Recognize MacBook Pro 3G Prototype, Apple Now Wants it Back

[cvaldes]

Not sure why this is such a big deal... I can tether to my iPhone 4 pretty easily.

There were no iPhone 4s around when this 3G MacBook prototype was produced three years ago.

Also, not everyone has a handset which allows for tethering.

Clearly, Apple is curious enough to investigate standalone notebook designs with cellular data capabilities, even if they have not brought one to market. That's an intrinsic part of the prototyping process: try out a bunch of different stuff knowing much of it won't make it into the final product.

 

[Rocketman]

Technically a Genius Bar "is" Apple. The return of the unit by Apple to someone with a written record probably kills any criminal claim possible, so at maximum it is a civil case. At this point any return is "courtesy" by the holder.

Rocketman

 

[macquariumguy]

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.

This is the internet where everyone is assumed to be guilty until proven more guilty.

 

[carlgo]

This is a test for the new guy. Jobs would have sued. Now, well giving the guy even a good sum of money is cheaper than all the attorneys and is a goodwill and heartwarming sort of thing to do.

 

[notabadname]

This is a test for the new guy. Jobs would have sued. Now, well giving the guy even a good sum of money is cheaper than all the attorneys and is a goodwill and heartwarming sort of thing to do.

Yeah, they should definitely do something nice for the guy trading in stolen property.

 

[pdjudd]

Technically a Genius Bar "is" Apple. The return of the unit by Apple to someone with a written record probably kills any criminal claim possible, so at maximum it is a civil case. At this point any return is "courtesy" by the holder.

Rocketman

All Apple's Legal department has to do is assert that A genius bar employee was not capable of determining internal prototypes and are only resposnible for validly sold products. In other words, their roles as "Apple" are limited to repairing products physically sold by Apple and nothing else and have no legal ability to establish "abandonment" outside of law enforcement rules.

This is a test for the new guy. Jobs would have sued.

Exactly what precedence are you basing this on?

 

[Fwink!]

You have no evidence that the device was stolen. The device is older, was there a police report or insurance claim filed by apple at the device's disappearance? Thought so. It's just as likely that someone not authorized to do so gave permission for the device to leave apple's custody. Why you all assume theft and have some silly notion that Apple has a claim on this device is beyond me. Prototype or not, intended for general sale or not - none of that means a thing. Apple's intentions are not protected beyond the scope of the law. Some junk prototype ends up in the trash, they are out of luck. If they want these things kept under wraps there are things called incinerators and industrial shredders.

If it was me I would expect a top of the line sampling of Apples products and software as reward for finding and returning the device to apple, in good faith.

 

[Mad-B-One]

Memorabilia

I have a totally different take on that than "stolen property." When I worked for Nintendo and worked with the "red cubes" with hard disks instead of mini DVD, everything was top secret. But sure, now that the game cube is past and gone, it is not the secret anymore, its the nostalgia. Every big company has them. When I worked for a different company who was co-inventor of the anti-blocking system for cars, they found an old prototype, 40 pounds of research, and they kept it as a gift for a retiring colleague making a display for a side table out of it.

Maybe five years after this was top secret, apple wants to have it back for some kind of display purpose somewhere. Yea, legally it's theirs but the damage some see here as reveling secrets is minimal to none. Every company who wants to spy on that kind of technology can buy a MacBook of that time and take it apart. The 3G functionality is not really important other than for being a curiosity because it never made it into the final design. It might serve as argument against patent law suits that apple had that already produced in case some other company claims property of having Laptop & Data in one.

And some people here talk about precedence... It is technology from the day before yesterday. Keep in mind that by Moore's Law, that thing is stone age. Might as well have a crank on the side to start calculations. There is a difference about a leak of a soon-to-be-presented new item like the iPhone 4 was when it was left at a bar and this one, a prototype which never made it into production. First one: Top secret, hit them hard and get people to fear and not to repeat it. It is just silly as CEO to present something everyone has seen on youtube a week ago. Second one: Cool stuff for geeks and collectors, no practical value because if you would use it on a daily basis, it would eventually die beyond repair and loose a lot of its value.

Also: Please don't forget that the person in possession put a lot of effort into it to make it run again. Before that, it was essentially a nice paperweight with collector's value.

My opinion and my hopes are that Apple knows that, too, and will act accordingly. Apple is not always this sterile monster. I remember the story when they sent someone a free iPad when he had to return it with a sticky note "Wife said no." and Apple sent it back with the note "Apple said yes."

 

[kingtj]

It's all about "principles", ultimately ....

I think, really, this boils down to another debate over the age old issue of how to handle cases where stolen property is unknowingly purchased by an individual.

As far as I'm aware, the laws basically state that regardless of one's knowledge or intentions when purchasing a product from someone else? If it was originally stolen and they manage to track it down, the current owner is required to surrender it without any financial compensation.

I remember many years ago, I worked for a small computer store. Not long after the Xmas holidays, a guy came in asking if we were interested in buying a Toshiba laptop from him. It was clearly in like-new condition, and he had the original box, manuals, etc. He claimed he got it as a Christmas gift but it wasn't exactly what he wanted, and he needed the cash for other things. The store owner accepted his asking price and bought it, so he could put it on his shelf and resell it for a $200 or so profit.

Unfortunately, several days later, the county sheriff showed up looking for it, and upon verifying it had a specific serial number they were after, walked out the door with it. Apparently, it was actually stolen from a local Best Buy store as part of an identity theft scheme where this guy, shortly out of prison, was applying for credit and buying everything from computers to new furniture, to resell to people.

The store owner was never compensated for the money he lost, buying the machine -- and I think all of us who worked there felt that was unfair. Apparently, the "law" says the procedure to deal with this is to file a civil lawsuit against the party who sold you the stolen property. Realistically, that's a joke since #1, you're not too likely to be repaid by a career criminal/con artist even if a judgement is awarded in your favor, and #2, you're still out valuable time and potential legal expenses to deal with it.

Bottom line? If you're the original owner of the property that was stolen, the whole process seems completely fair "on principle" to you. You're able to recover what was stolen from you. If, however, you're an unfortunate person on the other end -- who just tried to do an honest business transaction to buy a used good? It seems VERY unjust "on principle", that someone can just take away what you paid for and it's YOUR problem to chase down financial compensation for it.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

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.

But if it went to a waste disposal / recycling place and they re sold it then the who's property it is likely is no longer apples. And if apple put it in the recycling pile then it is not wrongfully removed.

places like this take in old hardware They resell working systems and shred non working systems.
http://us.simsrecycling.com/

Apple likely does not have a on site environmentally responsible shredding and separation on there site and likely put this in the recycling pile and the recycling place may of resold it.

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Technically a Genius Bar "is" Apple. The return of the unit by Apple to someone with a written record probably kills any criminal claim possible, so at maximum it is a civil case. At this point any return is "courtesy" by the holder.

Rocketman

People return or try to get stolen stuff repaired all the time.

His returning it is no courtesy. Unless he can prove apple sold it or transfered ownership to someone else he is not going to be able to keep it.

If you get stuck with stolen property the loss is on you. The reimbursement is an issue with the person they got it from, not apple.

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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

You have no evidence that the device was stolen. The device is older, was there a police report or insurance claim filed by apple at the device's disappearance? Thought so. It's just as likely that someone not authorized to do so gave permission for the device to leave apple's custody. Why you all assume theft and have some silly notion that Apple has a claim on this device is beyond me. Prototype or not, intended for general sale or not - none of that means a thing. Apple's intentions are not protected beyond the scope of the law. Some junk prototype ends up in the trash, they are out of luck. If they want these things kept under wraps there are things called incinerators and industrial shredders.

If it was me I would expect a top of the line sampling of Apples products and software as reward for finding and returning the device to apple, in good faith.

All of that is theft.

Unless the guy can prove someone legally obtained the product they are going to have to give it back.

 

[pdjudd]

You have no evidence that the device was stolen. The device is older, was there a police report or insurance claim filed by apple at the device's disappearance? Thought so.

Its very likely that the device was never marked *stolen* because they had no idea where it was. All they can really know is if they sold it or not.

It's just as likely that someone not authorized to do so gave permission for the device to leave apple's custody. Why you all assume theft and have some silly notion that Apple has a claim on this device is beyond me.

Probably because Apple doesn't sell their prototypes and they are asking for this one back? That indicates to me that is was improperly obtained. Note, I don't know if it was stolen or not. I am not makeing any claim. It doesn't have to be *stolen* for Apple to have a legitimate claim to it.

By the by, if someone not authorized to sell something goes ahead and sells it anyway, that is pretty much the same thing as theft.

The fact that Apple asserts ownership implies that they believe that it was never sold or abandoned.

ETA:

Unless the guy can prove someone legally obtained the product they are going to have to give it back.

That's the key thing, since the item was not a publicly sold item, Apple most likely has a greater ability to claim ownership - Apple just has to assert that they never sold or disposed of the prototype (or if it was disposed that a contract was violated) and the buyer has to show otherwise.

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

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.

But if it went to a waste disposal / recycling place and they re sold it then the who's property it is likely is no longer apples. And if apple put it in the recycling pile then it is not wrongfully removed.

places like this take in old hardware They resell working systems and shred non working systems.
http://us.simsrecycling.com/

Apple likely does not have a on site environmentally responsible shredding and separation on there site and likely put this in the recycling pile and the recycling place may of resold it.

If he can prove that is where he got it and that someone legally authorized by apple sent it there he might have a case otherwise no dice.

Imagine if all criminals had to do is sell something once and the goods would be removed from the owner forever. Nobody seems to be seeing the bigger picture or why the laws are the way they are.

Some guy steals your car and I buy it from them. Too bad so sad for you unless you want to pay me for it you are out of luck.

 

[MotzKopf]

The denial of service was based on the fact that this laptop appeared to have been built with 3rd party hardware. Is there any evidence that this laptop has a red logic board?

With the absence of evidence that it has a red logic board I submit this is a Franken-tosh. I recently became the befuddled owner of a black market MacPro I bought off of eBay.

It's an 8-core 2.26 Ghz, and when I took it to the Apple Store to get an AirPort card installed, I was told that my Mac didn't exist. The case had no serial number, and the logic board wasn't in their system. I wanted them to run a diagnostic, but they couldn't because it wasn't serialized, and they had no way to serialize a Franken-tosh. Thankfully they didn't refuse to install the AirPort card.

The seller on eBay finally confessed that he had built if from new OEM parts from an authorized Apple service center online. All the parts are genuine Apple parts, they just weren't assembled by Apple.

Hence a Franken-tosh. If Apple is interested in this MacBook, it might be because they've seen a rise in 3rd party Macs, and in this case a 3rd party Mac with a non-standard configuration.

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

So. Using logic and sound reasoning how do you think it got from a closed lab a few years ago to ebay ?

I read nothing about it mysteriously disappearing from a locked lab. Perhaps an Apple engineer really did sell it on Craiglist? Perhaps Apple actually let this engineer take the laptop home? Perhaps Apple didn't keep a close watch on this because it wasn't important until it turned up on eBay?

None of those things change the fact it is stolen property and needs to be returned.

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

I give up.

You and the others are assuming the laptop was stolen and sold illegally, which may very well be the case. So far, there has been no evidence to prove that nor anything being publicly stated by Apple that that is the case. If the laptop was obtained illegally, then it is Apple's right to have it back, no ifs ands or buts about it. But if they were lax and let an employee have it, that doesn't mean it was stolen. That's all I'm saying, that is a possibility. It sure took Apple long enough to "ask" to have it returned.

Employees can steal things.

 

[pdjudd]

The denial of service was based on the fact that this laptop appeared to have been built with 3rd party hardware. Is there any evidence that this laptop has a red logic board?

With the absence of evidence that it has a red logic board I submit this is a Franken-tosh. I recently became the befuddled owner of a black market MacPro I bought off of eBay.

.

You can't assert that legitimately - that's called making things up. Logic boards (red ones) can be gotten lots of places. All we knew that it was rejected by the Genus bar because it was not identified as a legitimate Mac that they are allowed to service.

It's been identified as a prototype. It was bought and sold as an apple product.

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

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Since apple does not sell it's prototypes it has to be stolen. Even if he did not get convicted for possession he has no rights to the property nor compensation from the legal owner.

Once they throw it out, its not thiers. If apple did not file it stolen years ago, it is not stolen and was properly thrown out at apple.

That is 100% not true.

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

It would be disgusting to find out that his laptop was simply taken back by Apple without any refund!

Where do you live? Thieves would love to rob you.

 

[erzhik]

I seriously hope they are paying him well for it. Otherwise I see no point in returning it.

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Regardless of how it got where it is it is still a prototype and is covered by intellectual property laws. Apple has a right to it.

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.)

Yeah not how it works. The burden of proof will be on him that they item was legally sold or transfered by apple.

It does not matter what the guy thinks or knows. You can 100% believe something is legit but if it is stolen you have to give it up and you are not entitled to any compensation

 

[tbrinkma]

I am not a lawyer, but I do have a graduate diploma in Law. There is already law on ownership for things that are disposed of.

You can't just take things from people's waste bins.

I'm not equipped to give definite answers on questions of transfers of ownership, but it's absolutely trivial for the lawyers, these are not philosophical questions, these are points of law that were worked out ages ago.

If apple didn't dispose of their ownership by gifting the device to someone (and why would they?) it's hard to see how it wouldn't belong to them or a waste disposal company charged with destroying it...

Strange, it's been ruled perfectly legal in quite a few states, including three that I've lived in. How did most of those rulings come to be? The police were investigating someone, and raided their trash without a warrant. The evidence was contested, and the courts said it was legal because the police didn't have to trespass to reach the trash, and the owner had relinquished ownership rights to the objects in their trash. (Otherwise it would be theft for the garbage crew to come take it.)

All the rulings I'm aware of have been that the entity who throws out trash loses all property rights to that trash. (They can reclaim those property rights by reclaiming the trash, but if someone else gets to it first, too bad.)

Now, I have no doubt that there are jurisdictions where this isn't the case, but I know for a *fact* that your blanket statement is incorrect.

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

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.

In the case of who gets stolen property back guilt and innocence is irrelevant.

The legal owner, in this case apple, gets it back. Apple can prove they own it. Unless the person who has it can prove that someone authorized by apple sold it or transfer it he has no rights to keep it.

 

[mikerudolph22]

For realz

How much is apple paying him for it?

He better get the $70k he would have received from the eBay sale!!

 

[tbrinkma]

no, you just littered.

Actually, both statements are true. He abandoned his ownership/property claim to them *and* littered.

Had he walked those books out the curb and dumped them into a trash can, his statement would be true, and yours would not.

It's quite easy to abandon a claim of ownership/property, but it takes is an affirmative action. For example, if I accidentally leave something somewhere, I have not abandoned my claim to it. If I *intentionally* leave it somewhere, with no intent of coming back for it, I have. That's why it's not illegal to rummage through someone's trash. (And why many a college student legally has a free, second-hand couch in their apartment.)