the same people that don't know about apple and its product life cycle also don't know an iPhone was lost in a bar.
This only seems like big news to you (us) because it is a topic we are interested in and follow.
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Criminal Investigation of Lost Next-Generation iPhone Spurred by Apple Requests
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the same people that don't know about apple and its product life cycle also don't know an iPhone was lost in a bar.
This only seems like big news to you (us) because it is a topic we are interested in and follow.
Well I don't mean to repost what I put a couple hours ago.... but there seems to be people who are still talking about lost vs stolen...
The phone can be both lost (missing from one's possession) and stolen (taken without right, with intent to keep or make use wrongfully).
also has links to California's laws regarding the matters.
Good night! Almost time to watch ... Lost
The phone can be both lost (missing from one's possession) and stolen (taken without right, with intent to keep or make use wrongfully).
also has links to California's laws regarding the matters.
Good night! Almost time to watch ... Lost
I rarely check out the forums on macrumors, but I thought I'd chime in like everyone else!
BTW, I am not a lawyer so take what I say as just opinion
1. Apple's doing this for publicity!
As we all know, Apple is very controlling about their brand and marketing. By bringing in others into the situation (as in the police), they will lose incredible amounts of control of what is going on, what people will say, and how everything will be perceived. In my opinion, they would not do this.
2. Lost vs stolen!
General definitions--
Lose: 2. To miss from one's possession... Webster.com
Steal: 1a. To take or appropriate without right ... with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully webster.com
So based on this, the phone what both lost by Powell and stolen by the finder.
But how about the laws of California?
I'll admit I didn't read it all, but here are some sections I thought were interesting...
484. (a) Every person who shall feloniously steal, take, carry, lead, or drive away the personal property of another, or who shall
fraudulently appropriate property which has been entrusted to him or
her, or who shall knowingly and designedly, by any false or
fraudulent representation or pretense, defraud any other person of
money, labor or real or personal property, or who causes or procures
others to report falsely of his or her wealth or mercantile character
and by thus imposing upon any person, obtains credit and thereby
fraudulently gets or obtains possession of money, or property or
obtains the labor or service of another, is guilty of theft. In
determining the value of the property obtained, for the purposes of
this section, the reasonable and fair market value shall be the test,
and in determining the value of services received the contract price
shall be the test.
Finder did "steal" the prototype. Not sure if it works like this but since Gizmodo/Jason Chen admitted to paying $5000 for it, they admitted to a "fair market value"... which in reality is probably much more.
485. One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who
appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another
person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just
efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is
guilty of theft.
The finder could have given the phone to the bar owner/employees. But think about this....
Gizmodo announced the identity of Gray Powell. How did they get his name despite the phone being remotely wiped??? The finder found his identity on the phone's facebook app. Link
"During that time, he played with it. It seemed like a normal iPhone. "I thought it was just an iPhone 3GS," he told me in a telephone interview. "It just looked like one. I tried the camera, but it crashed three times." The iPhone didn't seem to have any special features, just two bar codes stuck on its back: 8800601pex1 and N90_DVT_GE4X_0493. Next to the volume keys there was another sticker: iPhone SWE-L200221. Apart from that, just six pages of applications. One of them was Facebook. And there, on the Facebook screen, was the Apple engineer, Gray Powell.
Thinking about returning the phone the next day, he left. When he woke up after the hazy night, the phone was dead. Bricked remotely, through MobileMe, the service Apple provides to track and wipe out lost iPhones. It was only then that he realized that there was something strange that iPhone. The exterior didn't feel right and there was a camera on the front. After tinkering with it, he managed to open the fake 3GS."
So the finder knew of Gray Powell's identity, and could have contacted him directly via facebook. Could have just said...."o hey did you or a friend lose a phone at a bar last night?" He didn't. He thought about it. Saw something unique and opened up the phone. Whether prototype, real, fake, owned by a company or individual, the finder didn't really do their due diligence to find the owner.
Laws continued!
486. Theft is divided into two degrees, the first of which is
termed grand theft; the second, petty theft.
487. Grand theft is theft committed in any of the following cases:
(a) When the money, labor, or real or personal property taken is
of a value exceeding four hundred dollars ($400) except as provided
in subdivision (b).
The value is at least $5000 (what gizmodo paid), and is therefore considered grand theft.
496. (a) Every person who buys or receives any property that hasNot sure what to make of the last part... it may mean that since the value is over $950 it is considered a felony. But anyway... someone knowing that they are buying something stolen is a crime, punishable by jailtime. Gizmodo knew the phone was not the property of the finder.
been stolen or that has been obtained in any manner constituting
theft or extortion, knowing the property to be so stolen or obtained,
or who conceals, sells, withholds, or aids in concealing, selling,
or withholding any property from the owner, knowing the property to
be so stolen or obtained, shall be punished by imprisonment in a
state prison, or in a county jail for not more than one year.
However, if the district attorney or the grand jury determines that
this action would be in the interests of justice, the district
attorney or the grand jury, as the case may be, may, if the value of
the property does not exceed nine hundred fifty dollars ($950),
specify in the accusatory pleading that the offense shall be a
misdemeanor, punishable only by imprisonment in a county jail not
exceeding one year.
3. Gray Powell will get fired!
He lost the prototype phone a month ago, and appears to still work for Apple. If they were going to fire him, they would have done so by now.
Just my opinions
How about the apple employee was very irresponsible but it does not excuse the finder from not returning the item?
Things aren't always black and white.
And so you know, I fully think the finder was in the wrong and I think he only did enough to be able to pretend he tried to return the phone (I think he didn't really want to return it but was covering his ass, that is if he "found" it, as people pointed out, that's only what he told Gizmodo).
That doesn't mean the apple employee should not have excercised more diligence in keeping track of a very important item to his employer that he was given responsibility for (nor does the apple employee's mistake excuse the finder for saying, "He messed up, I get to profit!").
It seems apparent you are neither familiar with the Gizmodo stories or the laws of the State of California. Essentially every point you made is factually incorrect. I will not rehash the details as it has already been done 1000x in this thread and others.
No, it's on the local news, the Spiegel, the Bild, the Handelsblatt etc. pp I cannot speak for German newspapers but I guess the same holds for English etc. ones
I know the codes, Cmair was kind enough to enlighten me on them yesterday. Also, no one intends to lose anything, that's simply true by the definition of lost. And being drunk doesn't excuse the eng. Finally, I think that what many are saying, owing to their common sense, is that we don't think this situation warrants legal intervention for a judge to make that assessment in the first place. Citing the legal codes won't help resolve that issue now will it? It is simply begging the issue in the first place, i.e. should this have been brought to the attention of the police or the DA at all?
I don't think Apple considers it a win that the new iPhone got its 15 minutes of fame this way. It stole the spotlight from other products they want to plug right now (iPad, new MBPs), it turns the Keynote gasp moment into a yawn moment, it presented the product in an unattractive manner (everyone's first impression didn't come from a glitzy shot of the final product, but a banged-up prototype snapped by an amateur photographer from hell).
I know most people have Jason "pastparticiple" Chen on ignore by now, it would be terrific if everyone else would stop quoting him
Fact not in evidence.
Sure it does, because the police or the DA should get involved when a felony is committed, and the legal codes define the fleony. Hence the legal codes resolve the issue.
No, the THIEF said the guy left the iPhone in a bar. We don't know that to be fact. For all we know, the iPhone was taken from him without his knowledge (pickpocket, etc.). IN FACT, one of the stories that ran today stated that Gray Powell filed a stolen phone report with the police last week.
It's not "just a phone". It's (was) a top-secret prototype of the 4th iteration of the Jesus phone. And it IS a secret weapon, designed to suck profits out of lesser competitors and pour those profits into Apple's bank accounts.
It's a pretty safe bet that Steve isn't happy about this but, remember, Gray Powell didn't get fired because he didn't do anything wrong.
The guy that made a public showing of the 3G iPad and let it be photographed.... I'm pretty sure he DID do something wrong.
What... no love for Nick Denton?
Mark
quiz your friends
most don't know or care about apple and their crazy secret corporate culture
the ones that do know also know that apple was on the verge of a new iPhone
It's been the chatter at the watercooler at work, and I'm the only one in the office who uses apple products or pays any attention to them. Somehow being on CNN, the NY Times, Letterman's top 10 list, every local news broadcast, every local newspaper, etc., injects these things into the public consciousness.
Interesting question. But in my opinion that's Apples/eng. and the police call. Apple/eng. bc. they have the ownership and the police bc. they knew (at least I suppose some of them read the stories of Giz. - that it was stolen. I wonder if the police had any chance but to act? I don't know about that.
Well if this isn't a fact then fine. However, I think those sympathetic with Chen in this case either take it for granted that either the eng. was drunk and irresponsible, or simply irresponsible in losing his phone. Sure its possible it was actually stolen and not found. But in that case all judgments should be suspended until we have all the facts. However, since we love to speculate here...
Be that as it may, the question at hand, to be put more precisely, is whether or not people's intuitions are likely to mesh with the legally defined code of a felony. As Anuba aptly remarked, some people would not consider this intuitively to be an instance of a felony but rather analogous to someone losing his cash on the street (that is, if some guy is dumb enough to lose his cash, he doesn't deserve it). That's very different from the intuitions that say, people who steal, intentionally and through pre-meditation, don't deserve to be prosecuted by the full force of the law.
perhaps this was their way of lessening the impact of what was amounting to a pretty anti-climactic event.
This release was in many ways catch up to the nexus one.
very unimpressive in my opinion.
Nope, a couple of them have iPhones first generations and didn't know anything since they read it in the paper that a new one with front camera etc. should come this summer. And I guess there are a lot "non-computer-folk" around.
No it's our call, because we the citizens, through our acts of deliberation, decide what we want our elected legislators to pass or repeal into law.
Will people stop assuming that everyone has a low moral character?
I've done stuff that totally didn't benefit me solely out of a sense of honor. People exist all the time that are honest and do the right thing even if htey could get away with it and they would benefit.
I cashier, I once again submit the fact I've made a few mistakes cashiering. People could have walked out and gotten free stuff. They came back and paid for it. I've done the same thing myself. Shoot, I found out Costco gave me two more gift certificates than I paid for long after I had gone to Costco. The place I redeemed the gift certificate the lady was like, "Lucky you." when I discovered it there. Next time I went back, more than a month later, I paid for those gift certificates (now where do you think I didn't think I'd get away with not paying for those gift certificates or would not benefit from never mentioning it to Costco? Cause I easily could have gotten away with it and that would have been about a free 27 dollars).
So, yes, I think I can safely say that no, just cause I thought I'd get away with it and I'd benefit does not mean I'd do it.
So, if you think everyone would just keep that iphone if they found it, don't assume cause you have don't have much ethics means everyone is like you.
sounds like you work with a crowd of people that keep in touch with the world...probably the same kind of people that find out if the product they are about to buy is about to become obsolete by a new release by the company that made it.
I did not say nobody knew about it.
just that the people that know.. also understand product life cycles
where i work less than 25 people know about it.. and some of them only know because i told them the story.
Probably. All Scandinavian papers have been following the story as well, and if it's happening in Scandinavia and Germany it's probably the same in France, Italy etc. I can't recall Apple getting this much coverage before, except when they've launched something major like the iPad or the original iPhone. The Apple/Gizmodo circus is the new Balloon Boy story.
Sorry, I don't get it, how that can be any speculation. Maybe I'm too tired. If you buy something for 5 k $ you know it's not a normal phone, and you know it's not legal, just bc. the other guy found it.
The cash-example: Depends on how much cash, a fiver, 10, 50 $ but a whole bunch of $ and I would go to a Lost & Found.
So going to a bar to drink with a top secert important iPhone, getting drunk/carelessly leaving it there is doing nothing wrong? Not taking enough precations when handling a million+ prototpe iPhone carelessly seems wrong. It's not a mass produced iPhone, but a special one, and this guy is an ass hole for even bringing it to a bar, and even more of an idiot for leaving it there. It seems like Gray DID SOMETHING WRONG.
Why do you assume people have high moral fabric? Look around you; the evidence is overwhelming.
Saying it is so doesn't make it so. And to generalize on the basis of your own self-conceptualization is hardly worth much.