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Details of Lost Next-Generation iPhone Saga Revealed in Search Warrant Affidavit

Geckotek said:
Wish I were so lucky, lost my 3Gs in a NYC cab. Tried to call it and the finder quickly powered it off. Luckily when the powered it on the next day, my Exchange server wiped it.

Left my credit card at a bar once. The next day someone decided they needed some tennis shoes and gas more than I needed my money. I would NEVER leave a found iPhone w/ a bar's "lost and found" (as if they actually have such a thing.) I would try to locate the owner on my own. I would probably check back with the bar to see if anybody called looking for it.
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Yup.

Thats the bad part about popular phones though. People are more likely to take an iPhone because of the ease of popping in another sim card. Its also why I kinda love CDMA for not using sim cards haha....if people can't steal/sell the phone they are much more inclined to go find the owner.

I had my phone stolen TWICE when i had nextel during their popular era. Like put it down on a ledge while playing some drinkiing games at a party, go back to get it and it was gone.
 
Bytor65 said:
It is never smart to extort people for the return of their own property. As Gizmodo folks will likely find out. So we shouldn't be discussing that he should have instead tried to extort favors from Apple. He simply should never have taken the phone to begin with.
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No, but this was a very unique situation which is why there's so much discussion about it. I didn't suggest he ask for a dime of compensation. He found something deemed "invaluable" (as Apple put it) and it's far short of extortion to request to return it directly to the company's largest shareholder and CEO rather than the nearest genius bar. He would have been doing Apple a tremendous favor that could have been spun into a fun story generating some positive PR for Apple, and would have served this guy much better than $5k and heap of trouble.
 
raccoontail said:
No, but this was a very unique situation which is why there's so much discussion about it. I didn't suggest he ask for a dime of compensation. He found something deemed "invaluable" (as Apple put it) and it's far short of extortion to request to return it directly to the company's largest shareholder and CEO....
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Asking special favors to return an owners property is extortion IMO. Perhaps not in the eyes of the law (Not a Lawyer), but in my eyes it is clearly a dishonorable way to behave.

This thread is full of way too much mealy mouthed, what can you legally get away with, type discussions. Personal honor seems dead.

It should be freaking obvious to everyone what the honorable thing to do is:

Don't take it.
If you have reason to expect issues leaving it with club management, perhaps take it, but only if you leave contact details.
When the owner contacts you arrange to immediate return, and ask nothing for returning it.

The amount of people here that would seek to benefit from someones loss is disgusting. This is the kind of thinking lead to Gizmodo folks buying stolen goods and attempting to extract favors from Apple to return it.
 
Bytor65 said:
Asking special favors to return an owners property is extortion IMO. Perhaps not in the eyes of the law (Not a Lawyer), but in my eyes it is clearly a dishonorable way to behave.

This thread is full of way too much mealy mouthed, what can you legally get away with, type discussions. Personal honor seems dead.

It should be freaking obvious to everyone what the honorable thing to do is:

Don't take it.
If you have reason to expect issues leaving it with club management, perhaps take it, but only if you leave contact details.
When the owner contacts you arrange to immediate return, and ask nothing for returning it.

The amount of people here that would seek to benefit from someones loss is disgusting. This is the kind of thinking lead to Gizmodo folks buying stolen goods and attempting to extract favors from Apple to return it.
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Not addressing the morals here, but the specific point is somewhat moot. When returning the phone to Apple, the finder would have been presented with an NDA to sign, and doubtless offered some sort of compensation (probably even tea with the big man) in exchange for doing so. After all, without an NDA there would be nothing to stop me from displaying photos, etc. of things that were visible from the outside of the phone. Thus anyone immoral enough to seek some sort of compensation for returning the phone would doubtless have received it.
 
cmaier said:
Sure he didn't. And yes, if I thought it to be an ordinary phone I'd turn it over to the bartender.
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Agreed. From what I've read, Hogan was not actually the one who found it. Someone else did and gave it to Hogan. If Powell hadn't put in the lock code, then it would be a simple matter to open it up to contacts and find the owner (or someone who knew the owner). My daughter's boyfriend found an iPhone and brought it to me. I opened up Contacts, called the entry titled "home" and it was back in the owner's hands in less than 24 hours. I'm sure there were very limited numbers of 4G prototypes floating around and I'd bet money that every one of them had a contact titled "Steve Jobs".

I would personally find it acceptable if the phone was found to immediately call the owner (Apple) and arrange for its return. Photos of the iPhone (and subsequent sale of these photos) would be acceptable, IMO. Apple wouldn't have liked it, but then that's the breaks if your guy looses it. But failure to contact the owner (or turn it in to the police) and particularly disassembly is another matter altogether. Even if Apple were called and it took them 30 minutes to send someone to retrieve the item, photos are legal - disassembly becomes a violation of law. The duty (in California) for a person finding property is not only to return the item or turn it in to police, but safeguarding the property until one of these conditions is met. Disassembly is destruction of property.
 
Cinemagic said:
Agreed. From what I've read, Hogan was not actually the one who found it. Someone else did and gave it to Hogan. If Powell hadn't put in the lock code, then it would be a simple matter to open it up to contacts and find the owner (or someone who knew the owner). My daughter's boyfriend found an iPhone and brought it to me. I opened up Contacts, called the entry titled "home" and it was back in the owner's hands in less than 24 hours. I'm sure there were very limited numbers of 4G prototypes floating around and I'd bet money that every one of them had a contact titled "Steve Jobs".

I would personally find it acceptable if the phone was found to immediately call the owner (Apple) and arrange for its return. Photos of the iPhone (and subsequent sale of these photos) would be acceptable, IMO. Apple wouldn't have liked it, but then that's the breaks if your guy looses it. But failure to contact the owner (or turn it in to the police) and particularly disassembly is another matter altogether. Even if Apple were called and it took them 30 minutes to send someone to retrieve the item, photos are legal - disassembly becomes a violation of law. The duty (in California) for a person finding property is not only to return the item or turn it in to police, but safeguarding the property until one of these conditions is met. Disassembly is destruction of property.
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What you said. I would've done it that way.
I'm sorry , some people hear acting like they would keep this secret from everyone (yet go crazy about any Apple rumors) is lying.

I would've most certainly taken pictures and returned the device. Again, i would also write in my casual tech blog i write in and have the pictures and write up and post only after the phone was returned. Of course never taking it apart though.

There is nothing against the law with taking pictures of a random phone you found.
 
Hal Itosis said:
Well look in the mirror man. Or actually, just look into the screen of your iPad before you turn it on, 'cause it is surprisingly reflective. It's really beautiful. [did you guys do this?]
...
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I had my closed captioning on, and these comments were surrounded by <sarcasm> </sarcasm> tags during the broadcast on my TV. ;)

Anyway, I'm happy for you that you can believe that Stewart's broadcast was an Apple advert. Enjoy your reality.
 
AidenShaw said:
I had my closed captioning on, and these comments were surrounded by <sarcasm> </sarcasm> tags during the broadcast on my TV. ;)

Anyway, I'm happy for you that you can believe that Stewart's broadcast was an Apple advert. Enjoy your reality.
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And i'm happy that your TV has captioning (with sarcasm tags no less :D ) so that your brain will know how to react.

What is the argument here really? So that one sentence was more of a zinger than an endorsement... so what? [you cherry-picked my cherry-pickings.] Practically the whole thing was satire designed to provoke laughter. If you detected more than a smidgen of **sincere** outrage in that piece, then i can't help you. [edit: or, does your TV have <sincere> tags too perhaps? :rolleyes: ] It was a performance piece (with a jab or two, at best).

I think it's fairly common knowledge that both Colbert and Stewart are (what you'd call) fanboys. So... enjoy your "reality", while it lasts. ;)
 
"From what I've read, Hogan was not actually the one who found it. Someone else did and gave it to Hogan."

Right, and who did we hear that from? Hogan. And we should believe him because...?

I find it odd that so many people are just assuming the story is exactly what Hogan claims, when we have no reason to trust him.

How do we know he didn't just lift the phone in the first place?

That's probably the reason for CA's law -- otherwise you could steal stuff and then claim you "just found it."
 
cvaldes said:
You still don't get it.

Apple wants iPhone prototypes field-tested. They have a list of employees who are approved to take units off-campus (Steve Job allegedly reviews this list). They want the field-testing to occur in the way that real customers would use the device: in bars, restaurants, public transit, sporting events, concerts, parks, etc. They want the approved people to go to the Fillmore/Cafe Du Nord/Bottom of the Hill, take a call, text people, shoot some video, take some photos, etc. They want you to ride Caltrain/Muni/BART, go the baseball game, etc.

That's why the lost unit was cloaked in a case that made it look like an iPhone 3GS. It was meant to be taken off-campus.

Gray Powell was on that list of approved field-testers. If he wasn't, you better believe he would be out of a job. However, he's still employed by Apple.

The beer garden in question isn't really a bar, it's more of restaurant/pub and closed at 10pm the night he lost the phone. Yes, 10pm, like when a typical restaurant would close.
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Oh I get the testing. Makes sense. What does not make sense is getting so drunk you can't be responsible "Job Related"
 
Verizon employee and lost Droid

Speaking of lost prototype phones:

http://www.mobilemag.com/2010/05/25/unreleased-motorola-shadow-leaked-at-local-gym/

Apparently a Verizon employee was working out at a company gym and forgot his Motorola Shadow.

Now it gets interesting:

Another employee... reportedly a summer intern... found it and posted pictures and details. Then he called and returned the phone. For posting pics, he was fired a week early.

The Shadow reportedly has a 4.3" screen like the EVO, 1GHz cpu, 16GB internal memory, FroYo, 8MP camera. Rumors say it'll be called the Droid XTreme.
 
kdarling said:
Speaking of lost prototype phones:

http://www.mobilemag.com/2010/05/25/unreleased-motorola-shadow-leaked-at-local-gym/

Apparently a Verizon employee was working out at a company gym and forgot his Motorola Shadow.

Now it gets interesting:

Another employee... reportedly a summer intern... found it and posted pictures and details. Then he called and returned the phone. For posting pics, he was fired a week early.

The Shadow reportedly has a 4.3" screen like the EVO, 1GHz cpu, 16GB internal memory, FroYo, 8MP camera. Rumors say it'll be called the Droid XTreme.
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I'm assuming half the people in this thread believe the first verizon employee was working out drunk.
 
Geckotek said:
HUH? No, I'm saying he didn't drive...he took a mass transit. (possibly...don't know)
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Oh :/ Does the affidavit mention anything about this? I can't read it, PDFs are screwing up the system, I haven't even got Adobe Reader installed.
 
gwangung said:
In the Mountain View/Silicon Valley area???? Have they got that far yet?
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That's why I asked the question. I don't know NoCal so I have no idea. I was just throwing out the idea that maybe he didn't drive. Heck, he could've hitched a ride w/ a designated driver or taken a cab.
 
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