Circumstances Surrounding Lost Next Gen iPhone Detailed

[Tronic]

To me this appears to be a controlled leak. Why? What is the first thing you do when you can't find your phone?

You call it.

If the kid answered, you ask if you can have it back.
If he says no tell him that it will be tracked and he will be hunted down.
If he says he doesn't care then you say well Apple will give you a free "blank" Apple product for doing the right thing.

Who would even put a phone on a bar stool? The bar seems like a much more logical choice.

I bet the said kid is an Apple employee who managed to steal it from Gary Powell to be cool and take some pics of it. When he realized it could be sold for so much he cashed in.

 

[Mac OS X Ocelot]

Okay this is just stupid. What is wrong with Gizmodo.

They have admitted to buying stolen property, and have a source who stole it.

Not to mention calling out an Apple employee as well.

this is like the worst coverage of anything ever. EFF GIZMODO.

For all we know the guy who got the phone STOLE IT... Jesus christ this is dumb.

Because Apple has the ability to remote wipe any phone, but not the ability to figure out who the phone belonged to. And they knew to wipe the phone because... the employee didn't go into work the next day and tell them he lost his phone?

 

[SirHaakon]

He didn't lose it. It was exactly where he left it, in the bar. He could have gone back for it the next day and retrieved it. Except that it was STOLEN by a fellow customer.

Right, and what's the statute on the time we're supposed to allow something to sit there and stay "not lost" until someone else can claim it? Can I go back to the café where I left my pencil in 5 years and expect to retrieve the item?

You're crazy. If you leave something in a public place and someone else picks it up, it's not theft. It's you're an idiot.

 

[Akira1980]

I love how people are hating on Gizmodo when it's the drunk idiot's fault (if this story is even true) for losing the iPhone. It's huge tech news, and Gizmodo paid to get the exclusive story. That's their business! I would have done the same thing if I had an inside scoop on a story relevant to my industry.

Exactly my point. I think people feel sorry for the guy because everyone can "relate" to him. We all did stupid stuff when we were drunk. But if I had one of the prototype in my pocket, I sure wouldn't be getting wasted.

 

[quagmire]

I love how people are hating on Gizmodo when it's the drunk idiot's fault (if this story is even true) for losing the iPhone. It's huge tech news, and Gizmodo paid to get the exclusive story. That's their business! I would have done the same thing if I had an inside scoop on a story relevant to my industry.

So you lose your car keys and I find them and take the car and sell it to a website so they could review it.

Would you have a problem with that since it was your fault?

 

[Lopes]

I love how people are hating on Gizmodo when it's the drunk idiot's fault (if this story is even true) for losing the iPhone. It's huge tech news, and Gizmodo paid to get the exclusive story. That's their business! I would have done the same thing if I had an inside scoop on a story relevant to my industry.

And you would then have committed a major crime as well, and I hope you would get punished to the full letter of the law that I hope Giz/Gawker and the seller do.

Sure the drunk employee left it there, clearly his fault. But HE didn't sell it to gizmodo. As others here have said, it became stolen property when it left the bar with the other guy, no matter how noble his initial intentions of finding Gray were. Giz knowingly purchased a stolen item. End of story.

 

[carmenodie]

Oh by the way. How did they obtain his name, age and job position? Give me a freaking break. I think the Apple rumor sites made this up to draw up attention to their sites. Click traffic!

 

[dub3000]

excuse my british cynicism but this wreaks of a marketing stunt.

Complete media set-up.

And the oscar for best manipulation of press goes to.............

nah, it doesn't make sense from that angle. official announcement wasn't meant to be for a few months yet. you really think apple would want all those now-much-harder-to-sell 3GS's sitting around in a warehouse now?

if it leaked in late June and was anonymous i'd be more likely to believe it was a deliberate leak.

pretty sure what you're meant to do in this situation is either leave it at the bar or make a good faith attempt to reunite the device with its proper owner. depending on the local laws, you may be *legally required* to do something like that. certainly selling it on (or buying it) puts you in a very dark position in terms of civil suits. and apple have a lot of lawyers.

 

[zoomad]

What?

According to Gizmodo founder's response to AP, they paid $5,000 for it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100419/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_apple_iphone

This is trafficking in stolen goods. They might have a big lawsuit and a criminal case to defend against. Well, at least I hope they do.

Trafficking stolen goods? Hardly. As far as the original finder is concerned, it was abandoned property. Sure, they should've reported it to the police to give Apple a chance to reclaim it, but it's not stolen. That's like saying you stole the $5 bill you found on the street.

 

[Aranince]

I think the guy who sold it to Gawker created a fake. I think Gawker just got ripped off.

 

[SirHaakon]

Lame Gizmodo just made that guys life even worse.

He's the one who made the choice to go out and get drunk.

 

[xlii]

I lost my wallet once when I was home on leave and went for a bike ride. It fell out of my pocket into the street. I didn't even know it. I got a call about 3 hours later at home from the person who found my wallet. They said, I found your wallet, this is where I live, come over and get it. I got my wallet back (there was a weeks pay in it). I'm forever grateful to that person who did the right thing.

Now who finds a cellphone, waits a few hours for the owner to come back, and then sells it for 5k? First of all you don't sell something that isn't yours. If the loser of the phone wasn't identified by looking at the phone the finder could have called Apple. He knew that was no ordinary phone, after all he sold it for 5k. Call Apple, tell them you found what looks like a prototype iPhone in a bar and that you'd like to return it. That's what the finder could have done.

 

[Pishab]

Typical Apple to hog the spotlight on the day that the new Amiga is announced

 

[Rat-Boy]

Or it was an intentional plant of a real device to sway potential Nexus One buyers to wait a bit more. This story seems to clean and convenient. Nexus One has gotten a lot of good press and it would be in Apple's interest to stop its mojo.

THIS.

 

[knight42]

My take on the whole thing, this is a Gizmodo joke and the phone is a fake. There are too many holes in the story and the product.

-They say they can get to the "connect to itunes" screen, but take no pics of it.
-They say it has been remote wiped, but that shouldnt stop it powering on.
-They got the phone a few weeks ago, did they get it April 1st by chance?
-No way Apple would let a low level programmer walk around with a prototype. All the other Apple products have been physically locked down to desks (remember the leaked iPad image)
- The internal shots can be easily faked. Gut a 3gs and stick the innards in a new case. Simple
-Johnny Ive says its a joke on Twitter.
-Gizmodo have (had) a good relationship with Apple, they have products at their doors the morning of the keynotes, we know this because they post reviews just as the keynotes end. Are they really going to end this relationship for a few days of hits? Commercially thats a suicide note.

So yeah, to sum up, its a joke and Ive written too much!

 

[joemama]

At first I thought it was an intentional leak, but the problem is that if it's true:

1.) Apple looks incompetent and can't control it's employees and security.
2.) This will cut into current 3GS sales

But the question is, why wouldn't the guy go back to the bar, or simply call the phone to see if someone answers it?

Something doesn't add up.

 

[carmenodie]

I think think it was lost on purpose as a marketing scheme. Remember when Apple use to issue take down letter to every website that had even a piece of a product? Well we haven't seen any of those.

Apple knows how to play this game. They've created enough talk about the iphone, ipad and OS 4 to get them all the way to WWDC. They'll release a few more clues in the OS 4 betas over the next month or 2 and which will make for a lot of free press from sites like this.

Kudos baby!
And Apple will save millions in advertising. Ah, click traffic. You have to love it.

 

[Smacky]

lol so many keyboard lawyers on here
Props to Gizmodo and Engadget, we need sites like this to keep the bastards honest

 

[quagmire]

Trafficking stolen goods? Hardly. As far as the original finder is concerned, it was abandoned property. Sure, they should've reported it to the police to give Apple a chance to reclaim it, but it's not stolen. That's like saying you stole the $5 bill you found on the street.

I still fall back to my other posts here.

Lets say you left the keys in your car. Should I interpret it as you abandoned your car and take it as my new car?

 

[SirHaakon]

So you lose your car keys and I find them and take the car and sell it to a website so they could review it.

Would you have a problem with that since it was your fault?

If I lost my car keys and you picked them up, you wouldn't be stealing the keys. If you took those keys and broke into the car that I didn't lose, then you'd be stealing the car. Those are two different scenarios.

 

[dpruitt]

People really will believe anything. Calling planet earth: Apple does not let pre-released hardware off the campus. There is no way that guy could have gotten it off campus.

Geesh, I can't believe people are making such a big deal about this nonsense.

 

[Smacky]

Kudos baby!
And Apple will save millions in advertising. Ah, click traffic. You have to love it.

Yes, because noone knows what an iPhone is amiright

 

[Lopes]

Right, and what's the statute on the time we're supposed to allow something to sit there and stay "not lost" until someone else can claim it? Can I go back to the café where I left my pencil in 5 years and expect to retrieve the item?

You're crazy. If you leave something in a public place and someone else picks it up, it's not theft. It's you're an idiot.

It is theft. What if it was a laptop you accidentally left at starbucks? Sure you're an idiot for walking away and driving 5 minutes from the place without it before you realize you left it there. You go back and it's gone. Wasn't turned into the manager. Just gone.

That's theft, plain and simple.

 

[marksman]

Why do you hope, how does it turn you on to have someone sued.

There was no stolen phone, some dropped the phone, someone picked it up and sold it to someone else. Knowing the guys name could constitute and ethical issue, but there was at no time anything that shows they where deliberate trying to steel anything.

I figure there are fanboy all over that area just waiting to see who is where, maybe catch Steve sipping some Latte.

There is nothing in law that says I am my brother keeper. Apple could file a complaint and those who without the capital to defend them selves could find them selves in trouble, but not because they did anything outside the law but more because without finances your SOL in the laws eyes.

Now go pick up your Apple paycheck.

Gizmodo was not "trafficking stolen goods".
The phone was never reported stolen. It was essentially "surrendered".

Furthermore they did not BUY the phone. They only paid to spend time with it.

However whoever released the name of the individual could potentially be sued or charged for defamation of character and public disclosure of a private fact.

Update: Unless however this was all pre-planned. It's getting a lot of viral press right now.

How does Gizmodo or anyone else know this guy just didn't steal it when the guy went to the bathroom or something and leave?

I am sure the Apple Employee would have had to make known it was lost, so I am sure Apple would have worked extremely hard to retrace his steps and try to find it. Which likely means the guy who stole it never even tried to find the owner of it. If not, the restaurant/bar/pub management would have known about it. So it is likely they guy just found a phone in a bar and took it. That is theft. He sold it for 5k that is grand theft.

In california the threshold for grand theft is $400.00. This guy went into a bar, saw a cellphone sitting there and took it. That is theft. It is not finding something. If he found it then he would give it to the business to try and return it to the owner.

Stealing something and selling it for 5k... Nice job. I want to meet Gizmodo's lawyers, who approved all this LMAO.

Hopefully they want get any conspiracy charges thrown in for flavor.

 

[olternaut]

Gizmodo names the freaking dude who lost the iPhone???????

Can you imagine if this guy was standing next to Steve Jobs as he is reading Gizmodo while exclaiming...."If I ever get my hands on the imbecile who lost the prototype I'm going stomp on him till his guts spew out!"

All the while Gray nervously nods and smiles in agreement..........right up to the moment Steve reads the part where Gary's name is revealed.

Minutes later Gray would be seeing fleeing the Apple campus with Apple security chasing and shooting at him.

What the hell is Gizmodo thinking? Not only do they tempt Jobs into having them targeted for termination but they also back stab Gary by revealing his identity???? Really??

What part of an anonymous clandestine payoff do they not understand?