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This is clearly fishy. But I have my money on this...

The retired police officer that now works at Apple called up some of his buddies that were still on the force and said "Hey, I have to go investigate a house that we traced a phone to, can you come and back me up?"

His friends said ok, they all showed up, and it was never documented. If anyone gets bagged, it COULD be the police station, if that's how it really went down.

Except for the part where it claims he left his real name and number with the guy.
 
Interesting point, I think, is that the iPhone's geolocating is pretty accurate. That, tied to the fact that the bloke had been to that restraunt at the time the iPhone went missing, is pretty compelling, if circumstantial, evidence. He clearly has it.

It's not pin point accurate. It's still going to be off by meters. Also if indoors it'll be less accurate because it will then use cell towers to try to figure out location.

If you live in the Mission you'll see that it's a lot of close houses and apartments. So they could have been in the wrong house/apt.
Also in the Mission there's only so many popular bars/restaurants. The chances of any resident in the Mission at any of these places are quite high.

But yeah it's all circumstantial evidence at best.
 
THis is really sounding outlandish. Either a). whoever runs Apple security is a numbskull, or b). this story is false.

Seems very unlikely a company security department would go out on a which hunt for a prototype. Why would they not contact police first? Makes no sense and when things don't make sense, they usually are not true.

Fishy part is that they waited even 12 hours for this guy to get rid of the prototype. Or that they would claim to be cops. especially since Apple could probably get help from the real cops anytime they want

Frankly it wouldn't be that hard to fake this story right down to he fake apple employee, the guy being seen at the bar or the call the next day.

For all we know Sergio is the reporters brother in law and Tony is a photo of some random guy. Though they could have picked better. LinkedIn is supposed to be professionals and that photo looks like a Guido from Jersey Shore
 
re original article

if a tv/movie script were produced - these lost iphone stories would be considererd comedy and or mystery
 
Publish hearsay, unsubstantiated reports, sit back and let personal biases run amok with theories and rumors of theories. Is this how journalism works on the internet these days? I guess so.

Meanwhile the so-called tech sites are looking more and more like tabloid rags lately. Everybody wants to be the one that finally takes Apple down.

And does anyone really think that Apple would officially sanction something clearly illegal like this? I suppose there are enough goofballs out there that would.
 
You have to love the wannabe ambulance chasers and hypocrites on here. If you lost your phone you would want it back by any means necessary but if an "evil" corporation loses a phone, it somehow ok to keep it? Really?

Why is America so bloody sue happy? Rights violated? Really? Do criminals have more rights in America than the average citizen or companies?
 
Publish hearsay, unsubstantiated reports, sit back and let personal biases run amok with theories and rumors of theories. Is this how journalism works on the internet these days? I guess so.

Meanwhile the so-called tech sites are looking more and more like tabloid rags lately. Everybody wants to be the one that finally takes Apple down.

And does anyone really think that Apple would officially sanction something clearly illegal like this? I suppose there are enough goofballs out there that would.

Better have done worse for less.

Edit - More famous last words:

"Surely the US wouldn't intentionally infect people with STDs in the name of science!"
"Surely they wouldn't kill innocent people just to make a point!"
"Surely the US government wouldn't authorize the bombing of a target if they knew there would be collateral damage!"
"Surely we wouldn't invade another country against international law"
"Why should I care if the government is taking away my rights? I have nothing to hide."

Yeah, I bet goofballs thought these things too.
 
You have to love the wannabe ambulance chasers and hypocrites on here. If you lost your phone you would want it back by any means necessary but if an "evil" corporation loses a phone, it somehow ok to keep it? Really?

Why is America so bloody sue happy? Rights violated? Really? Do criminals have more rights in America than the average citizen or companies?
I think I lost my phone, would you mind if I entered you house? Maybe if I suggested or implied or outright said I was a cop, would you feel better about me crawling through your girlfriends panty drawer? If I told you it was on behalf of Apple would you mind me questioning the rights of you and your family to even be in the US? Would be OK with that?

No one said that it being Apple made it wrong. But yeah, being a big company makes it worse.
 
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Except it isn't. There's been no such determination. Or are you expecting exactly that determination to be made?

It's not criminal until charges are laid and a conviction obtained.

But when the prototype laptop turned up on eBay it was definitely stolen and all parties were presumed guilty without any charges being filed. Why is that?
 
Apple Police

OK, fine. Apple has it's own security forces which may, from time to time, break the law and impersonate official law enforcement. So what? Does Microsoft have it's own police force? Give 'em a few years and I'll bet they will.
 
OK, fine. Apple has it's own security forces which may, from time to time, break the law and impersonate official law enforcement. So what? Does Microsoft have it's own police force? Give 'em a few years and I'll bet they will.

Spoken like a true fanboi.
 
OK, fine. Apple has it's own security forces which may, from time to time, break the law and impersonate official law enforcement. So what? Does Microsoft have it's own police force? Give 'em a few years and I'll bet they will.

Microsoft should have their own police force. They are the most pirated company on earth.
 
Have you ever worked for a company? Even if you're not on the company dime and you're convicted of a serious crime, it puts a black mark on your company's image.

And I would imagine - unless the "police officer" was acting on his own (not likely) - it was a directive of the corporate office. Which means Apple is most definitely responsible.

Go look up the story of Pamela Smart :)

Not necessarily. It could be one of those cases where the higher-ups were intentionally vague about their orders — "We have a missing prototype and this is the address we got from its GPS. This is a very important piece of technology. It would be bad if our competitors got ahold of it. We need you to get it back."

In court, the exec can claim "we need you to get it back" meant "talk this guy into returning our property or offer him a little cash to get it back."

I can hear the testimony right now: "Our employee had 26 years of actual police experience — we expected him to know the difference between legally getting it an illegally getting it. But, then again, your honor, he's only been working for us for a few months, so perhaps he's used to doing things different — I don't know, maybe police officers regularly cut corners — unlike us here at Apple. I never gave orders to impersonate an officer. I don't condone doing so. And I never told him to do anything else illegal. I just told him to recover a phone. That's it."

Plausible denial. Even though the higher-up and the security guy both know what was implied in that order.
 
OK, fine. Apple has it's own security forces which may, from time to time, break the law and impersonate official law enforcement. So what? Does Microsoft have it's own police force? Give 'em a few years and I'll bet they will.

Hummm... I am an "Apple fanboi" and no company would endorse impersonating a cop. If (again, IF) they did do this, I'm sure it was the idiot rent-a-cop in charge that made that stupid call. With that said... this story just does not make sense.

Oh wait... there's four guys and woman with black turtlenecks and sunglasses on pounding at my door! It's the iPatrol! LOL!
 
I think that's why he came forward. It's been a month.
Either he just realized they weren't cops and came forward or he's looking at the $$$$.

But before anything can happen he needs to head over to SFPD and file a report.

If he doesn't then only several possible reasons come to mind.
1) He's lying and this whole thing is a hoax, which I doubt.

2) He is legal but maybe someone at his place isn't. So he would rather not have anyone investigate that. And maybe that's why he was so quick to let Mr. Colon and friends go through his stuff.

3) Apple gets to him first and it all goes away.

It is just a very strange story. Now clearly the story is either true, or it is made up. If it is true, then the following things happened:

1. Apple employee loses his iPhone 5 prototype.
2. Apple employees claiming to be police search someone's place. After searching the place, one of them leaves his phone number and an offer for a $300 reward for the phone.
3. The story about the lost phone and police searching the place is published; but no mention of the phone number and reward offer.
4. San Francisco police tells publicly that the story told isn't true; there was no police at that place.
5. The person whose place was searched now remembers that one of the supposed police officers actually left a phone number offering a reward.

If the story is not true, then the following happened:

1. No Apple employee lost his iPhone 5 prototype, therefore no police or Apple employees searched anything.
2. Someone made up a story with claims that police searched their place. The story is published.
3. San Francisco police tells publicly that the story told isn't true; there was no police at that place.
4. The claim now changes, no police but some Apple employee left their phone number.

From the linked-in page that was posted here, we know that the name of some Apple employee working in security was publicly visible. Don't know how hard the name was to find. Someone living in San Francisco may post whether the guy's phone number was publicly visible.

Everyone can decide for themselves what they think is more likely. I assume that the story is either completely true or completely made up. The fact that the story changes after the first version was proven to be not true speaks against it.
 
uhhh idk about this one...

first of all im a police supporter & a gov hater, but why didn't this guy ask for his warrant? i dont care if i have nothing to hide, if somebody wants to invade my personal space; they need a warrant.

no warrant, real police searching your home/computer and not documenting it OR no fake apple police coming into your house and looking through your stuff…

if the story is true (who knows) than the guy probably does have it, but i find it peculiar it yet again happened at a bar...
 
Publish hearsay, unsubstantiated reports, sit back and let personal biases run amok with theories and rumors of theories. Is this how journalism works on the internet these days? I guess so.

Meanwhile the so-called tech sites are looking more and more like tabloid rags lately. Everybody wants to be the one that finally takes Apple down.

And does anyone really think that Apple would officially sanction something clearly illegal like this? I suppose there are enough goofballs out there that would.

What hearsay. The weekly that broke this news got a fact from an official source: The police department said it had no involvement at all in this. That is on-the-record verification from a government agency. That's news.

So we're left trying to figure out if the guy is lying or if Apple (or its employees) is doing something shaky.

Given that the guy was able to produce a name and phone number that corresponds with an Apple security employee, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that someone from the company showed up at his house. Unless, of course, you think he scoured the web to find info to back up a made-up story about some iPhone prototype with the intention of ... ?
 
And before the man crossed the threshold to exit, the kid asked, "hey wait, who are you?"

The man wearing the suit and glasses, turned his head, cracked a smug half smile and replied," Smith. Agent Smith."

:D
 
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