Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Circumstances Surrounding Lost Next Gen iPhone Detailed
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Well that might be one issue to get all worked up about.
The use of capital execution of children might be another one.
But to use all that fancy rhetoric over the possession of a phone seems a bit....err... drama-queeny.
C.
Exactly. This isn't something you could just test in a small lab. The prototypes might be cosmetically different from the final device, but the reception characteristics would need to be identical so it wouldn't differ too much.
I remember problems where CD trays on old Macs wouldn't close (a lip on the underside of the tray would catch the edge of the outer case, and the tray would pop out again. The reason this issue made it past QA: testers worked only with prototype cases which were different to the final case. Apple's secrecy was assured, but an annoying QA problem was the result. For similar reasons, the prototype phones can't be TOO different from the final design.
Is this helpful? http://www.virtualrecordings.com/ford.htm
I think the case holds that the First Amendment prohibits the issuance of an injunction to prevent disclosure of a trade secret as a prior restraint, but that the publisher may be sued or prosecuted following publication.
I find it sad that the fool who found the phone didn't return it to the bartender but instead took off with it. The guy was having a good time out for his birthday, the only fools here are Gizmodo and the thief.
A car is not a phone
No, the phone is worth a LOT more money. Do you have any idea how much money goes into developing a prototype phone like this one? Even if it's a production run prototype, each phone can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars....
You're right. Have you seen this?
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/w...-iphone-story/19447570/?icid=sphere_copyright
Specifically, this part:
What he never did, however, was notify anyone who worked at the bar, according to its owner, Volcker Staudt. That would have been the simplest way to get the phone back to the Apple employee who lost it, who "called constantly trying to retrieve it" in the days afterward, recalls Volcker. "The guy was pretty hectic about it."
Yep, we all know Microsoft's case to be the opposite of Apple: while the later would shut up about its future products the former cannot stop announcing marvels and magicks that never come to existence And both do it on purpose ...
An intential plant of a fake device by Apple? How is that ever going to play out in Apple's favour. Substandard and people will be dissing the next iPhone before it's launched. Above actual production spec and Apple will have people bemoaning the absence of a feature they fully expected.
I can't see a case where it being fake makes sense!
The guy did call the bar multiple times. The person who stole the phone tried to cover his ass by saying he tried to call apple when all he did was call customer service never tried calling the bar or the guy whose name he saw on the phone.
http://daringfireball.net/
http://daringfireball.net/
So now this is theft, and I hope Apple destroy Gizmodo - Grey's employability after Apple is nearly 0
I think his privacy should have been preserved. We all make mistakes, and none of us wants our mistakes to be public entertainment.
But I do wonder if naming him gives him some kind of protection. The leaked iPhone made the nightly news here in Australia and if Apple treats him too badly, they'll look bad on the nightly news, not the kind of publicity a company trying to break out the the 'techies only' market into the 'general public' mass market would like to have.
I'm wondering if Gizmodo isn't testing the water a bit here, for future reference. Naming him probably didn't hurt him any further as far as Apple is concerned. The Wrath of Steve is pretty much absolute once you get on his radar. But if his name being public means Apple treats him less harshly for fear of bad publicity with the general public (not just techies who forgive Steve his peculiarities for his genius), the Giz may have done the right thing.
Honestly, I still think it's an Apple generated PR stunt. 5 minutes with Find My iPhone would have it back in Apple's possession if they wanted it back. iPhone has suffered against enthusiasm for other smart phones over recent months and a really big story is just the thing to build hype. Plus, what have Apple lost? It's not like any of the new features named aren't in every other phone on the market. And a crappy case that looks like a slapped together temp for testing?
If that's the actual case and the public thinks it sucks because Steve didn't get to schmooze it with his reality distortion field before we all saw it, Steve will probably skin him like a V. And let that be a lesson to us all.
I think this is correct info, but In OS 4.0, Find My iPhone is a broken feature, not yet fixed. So it wouldn't have worked even if they wanted it to...
I think. That's what I've heard.
According to iLounge, the phone wasn't running (i.e. won't run) any publicly available version of iPhone OS. Any CEO releasing test phones into the public without Find My iPhone would be negligent, wouldn't they?
No. One's duty of care (the level of care that qualifies as non-negligent) does not include a base assumption that a rat bastard criminal will conspire with a criminal news organization to steal the phone and maliciously misappropriate the trade secrets.
Having been left on a barstool. Almost all the information that came to light on the device *could* have happened without any breaking of laws.
I suspect Apple are delighted that it took 4 weeks for this information to break. It could have been much worse.
Apple are not surprised that the press are trying to get hold of their secrets by fair means and foul.
(In much the same way that actresses getting out of cars with a wardrobe malfunction are not surprised that scumbag photographers will take photos of their lady garden.)
The reason both things happen is widespread public interest.
C.
There are [at least] two things that pop out in this case related to the Apple engineer.
1) The Apple engineer must have signed at least one NDA [to do field testing with a prototype iPhone] so why didn't he use [read enable] the auto lock feature?
He now basically enabled/helped the finder to find out stuff that was not supposed to be revealed, prematurely, to other people. Weakening the case for Apple [related to trade secrets].
p.s. Wrapping it up in a case, to conceal it, is in my opinion not enough.
2) Why did he leave this expensive [top secret] iPhone prototype on a bar stool when he walked away from it?
I won't be surprised when the Apple engineer is fired after the investigation, because whatever you say about Gizmodo and the finder... this guy isn't totally clean either!
1) The Apple engineer must have signed at least one NDA [to do field testing with a prototype iPhone] so why didn't he use [read enable] the auto lock feature?
He now basically enabled/helped the finder to find out stuff that was not supposed to be revealed, prematurely, to other people. Weakening the case for Apple [related to trade secrets].
p.s. Wrapping it up in a case, to conceal it, is in my opinion not enough.
2) Why did he leave this expensive [top secret] iPhone prototype on a bar stool when he walked away from it?
I won't be surprised when the Apple engineer is fired after the investigation, because whatever you say about Gizmodo and the finder... this guy isn't totally clean either!
You mean, why didn't he use a passcode on the lock screen? For the same reason everyone else who doesn't, doesn't: it's an annoying step that adds little practical security for something you keep on your person at all times. Since Apple remotely tracks and disables the prototypes anyway, which presumably includes instant wiping when plugged into an unauthorized computer as well as remote wiping the instant it's reported lost (as happened here), what's the point?
Here, someone would have to lose the prototype (rare, but obviously not impossible), someone else would have to then find it, keep it, realize that it wasn't a regular iPhone, snoop around at an inappropriate depth to search for UI changes not already documented in the SDK, and photograph them--all before Apple remotely wiped the device. That's a pretty tall order, especially considering that the real value was the hardware.
Except that nothing related to the software was revealed.
The case is just for practical concealment to avoid attracting attention in public.
Because he lost it, as people do? People forget things in stores, restaurants, train stations, and bars all the time.
Based on what? He accidentally left something important in a public place. It's colossally bad luck, but he was supposed to be field testing. He could have left it at Starbucks with the same result. When you send prototypes out into the world for testing, you have to accept the chance that one might be misplaced.
Apple, it seems, has pretty comprehensive measures for limiting access, further limiting possession, tracking and remotely disabling them, concealing them from public view. But you can't control everything.
The finder probably would have been rewarded had he done the right thing and returned it either to the engineer or to Apple, but he knew he stood to make more money by selling it, and that's what he did. That conduct is inexcusable, regardless of whether it was an iPhone prototype, Prada sunglasses, or a little girl's teddy bear.
Ugh, what the hell is wrong with you? Not only did you bump an ancient thread, but you bumped it with absolute rubbish for content. Stop it.