Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I wasn't saying the thief was the victim. I was simply tying this situation into my connection to people who shift blame from the rapist to the woman who got raped because she was intoxicated and created the situation to be raped( such as the Steubenville, Ohio rape case)......

The person who I responded to made it sound like he was trying to shift blame from the thief to the employee who lost the phone.

Reading comprehension, the Apple employee isn't the victim, there isn't one in this case. Again, personal responsibility, something most people these days don't understand. You don't want someone to take you items, don't leave them unattended in a bar. Now he probably should have attempted to return it but "theft" it is not (again unless your'e in California where being careless aka an idiot is legally protected) .
 
The awesome thing to do would have been to bring it to HQ and request to give it to Steve personally.

At least we ended up with 'Find My iPhone' out of all of this mess
 
Reading comprehension, the Apple employee isn't the victim, there isn't one in this case. Again, personal responsibility, something most people these days don't understand. You don't want someone to take you items, don't leave them unattended in a bar. Now he probably should have attempted to return it but "theft" it is not (again unless your'e in California where being careless aka an idiot is legally protected) .

So if I left my car keys at the bar, it makes it ok for you to take them and my car?

Sorry, it is theft. The moment he took the phone and never made an attempt to return it to its owner.
 
What would I have done? I would have done the RIGHT thing like I always do when I find a wallet or a phone. Turn it in.

Hogan found out something about himself that day. He can be bought.
 
At least he apologizes for it. I would have just taken a LOT of pictures of it and left it.

----------

So if I left my car keys at the bar, it makes it ok for you to take them and my car?

Sorry, it is theft. The moment he took the phone and never made an attempt to return it to its owner.

Thank you. There are so many people who say "If you leave your car unlocked, you deserve to have your car stolen for being stupid." Uh no, the guy who stole the car deserves a bullet, that's it.

----------

If you're on this website, then you're part of the problem. You're creating an environment of fan-worship and a marketplace for leaked information.

There are people here saying "it's just a phone!" but it's your need to find out more about "just a phone" that creates a demand for leaks. If you weren't here for "illegally" obtained information, then you'd get all of your Apple info from apple.com

But I care about Mac leaks, not iPhone leaks, and nobody leaves a Mac in a bar. Besides, I don't really support anyone with all this ad-blocking I have.
 
He should suck it up. Tried to make a profit and didn't work out. Stop the whining.

I would have called Apple to inform them I have one of their testing devices and would like to return it.

In return I would have asked to speak 10-15 minutes to either Jony Ive or (at the time) Steve Jobs. This experience would have been a lot more worth than 5K.

Speaking to Steve Jobs? That could have either been really good or really bad, depending on his mood.
 
Moral of the story? Don't be a thief. Period.
If its not your property, don't it.

I have absolutely ZERO sympathy (is there such thing as negative sympathy) for this guy.
 
If you're on this website, then you're part of the problem. You're creating an environment of fan-worship and a marketplace for leaked information.

There's a difference between leaked information and stolen information. There are plenty of things we can discuss here that do not resort to criminal activity.

----------

What would I have done? I would have done the RIGHT thing like I always do when I find a wallet or a phone. Turn it in.

Hogan found out something about himself that day. He can be bought.

I think we learned a lot about our culture in the discussions that followed in the wake of that incident. I remember people were posting threads asking what you would do if you found a wallet on the street. Answers varied from "keep it, of course!" to "I'd feel entitled to take any cash that was in the wallet, but the rest of it, I'd give back to the owner [since it doesn't have any material value to me]". People were being cricitized -- criticized! -- for answering "I'd give it all back, of course".

My honour is worth more to me than a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars.
 
Bringing it back to Apple would have probably gotten him a reward and maybe even a job at Apple.
Did he really think Apple was just going to let this prototype go
But I do give him credit for acknowledging his mistakes and stupidity
 
There's a difference between leaked information and stolen information. There are plenty of things we can discuss here that do not resort to criminal activity.

Nearly everything on this site breaks legally binding NDAs. Look at the domain name of the site. How do you think "rumors" occur? Through illegal breaches.

You can't have it both ways. You can't like it when people break NDA to bring you rumors, and dislike it when people break social/ethical protocol to bring you rumors.
 
I would have contacted someone at Apple to set up a meeting where I could return the iPhone. That would be the right thing to do.

If you had actually read the article, you would have found that he DID try to contact Apple before doing anything else, but they blew him off and no one knew what he was talking about.

If there WAS a top secret prototype of a new iPhone, do you really think the person that answers the switchboard is going to know who to direct you to? They're going to laugh and play it off as a prank call.

If I recall correctly, I believe use of prototypes in the wild required approval from Steve Jobs. Good luck trying to call Apple, with their tens of thousands of employees, and ask to talk to the CEO. Not gonna happen.


It's all pretty silly now looking back at it.

Agreed, 100%. The whole situation was totally blown out of proportion. And Gizmodo turned out to be a bunch of scumbags. (Not that anyone hadn't known that already.)
 
What to do?

It's rather startling that we're discussing the options of what one would do in such a situation. There's only one answer. It's sad that in 2013 we don't know what that answer is. It matters little why someone left it, or that they left it behind. It's a matter of doing the right thing by the person who discovered it.
 
If you had actually read the article, you would have found that he DID try to contact Apple before doing anything else, but they blew him off and no one knew what he was talking about.

If there WAS a top secret prototype of a new iPhone, do you really think the person that answers the switchboard is going to know who to direct you to? They're going to laugh and play it off as a prank call.

If I recall correctly, I believe use of prototypes in the wild required approval from Steve Jobs. Good luck trying to call Apple, with their tens of thousands of employees, and ask to talk to the CEO. Not gonna happen.

If you remember this back in 2010, he called AppleCare. They wouldn't know the first thing to do about a prototype so of course they denied knowing about it. It would be like calling your local dealer saying you found a Prius mule.... The dealer would have no clue in how to deal with it. AppleCare wasn't the appropriate channel to contact Apple. Considering he knew the engineers Facebook info, Apple's HQ was close by, etc.


Emailing Steve Jobs would have been a good idea. He reads the emails. Emailed him saying he found it in a bar with a picture of it for proof, he would have replied back or had someone close to him contact him. Or took it to the police... Messaged the guy on Facebook, walked up to Apple's HQ, etc. He had a lot of better options than to call AppleCare with 100% chance of being shot down.
 
Last edited:
So if I left my car keys at the bar, it makes it ok for you to take them and my car?

Sorry, it is theft. The moment he took the phone and never made an attempt to return it to its owner.

Are the keys inside the car inside the bar? Not a very good attempt at you point there for you....

Once in high school I "lost" my wallet with a couple hundred dollars in it. I know where I had "lost" it and when I went to retrieve it it was gone. The person who "found" it is not a thief because I understand my actions and my carelessness has consequences. I don't need a law to protect me from my own actions, I understand personal responsibility. I have not "lost", left unattended, anything since that I wanted to keep. Even if I did I would not get law enforcement involved because it's not the local, state or federals governments burden to keep my possessions safe, it's mine. Perhaps if all parents (such as yours apparently) taught personal responsibility to their children, less resources would be spend in an attempt to protect us from our own actions.
 
Reading comprehension, the Apple employee isn't the victim, there isn't one in this case. Again, personal responsibility, something most people these days don't understand. You don't want someone to take you items, don't leave them unattended in a bar. Now he probably should have attempted to return it but "theft" it is not (again unless your'e in California where being careless aka an idiot is legally protected) .

Since this _was_ in California, it _was_ theft. Back then I checked what the law in New York said, and it was a misdemeanour as well, not called theft, but still a crime. And in Germany, it would have been theft even if you tried to return it. That's the only three locations where I know the answer, and in all three it is criminal. Don't even want to think what they'd do to you in Saudi Arabia if you took a phone from a bar that someone lost.
 
Are the keys inside the car inside the bar? Not a very good attempt at you point there for you....

Once in high school I "lost" my wallet with a couple hundred dollars in it. I know where I had "lost" it and when I went to retrieve it it was gone. The person who "found" it is not a thief because I understand my actions and my carelessness has consequences. I don't need a law to protect me from my own actions, I understand personal responsibility. I have not "lost", left unattended, anything since that I wanted to keep. Even if I did I would not get law enforcement involved because it's not the local, state or federals governments burden to keep my possessions safe, it's mine. Perhaps if all parents (such as yours apparently) taught personal responsibility to their children, less resources would be spend in an attempt to protect us from our own actions.

Having this discussion back in 2010, I'm tired of arguing with people who believe in, " finders keepers" as a legal defense to his actions.

Talking of my parents, my dad is a lawyer. I have discussed this case back in 2010 with him and he states it's theft the moment he didn't make a reasonable attempt at returning lost property.

It's apparently your parents that failed to teach you lost property is not yours to take.
 
. . . . . a box of chocolates.

Stupid is as stupid does.

The decline of humanity, marked by a discussion of a situation in which a person suffers abject failure to exhibit a shred of honesty and whether that failure is a reflection upon and the responsibility of that flawed person and the consequences that person suffers as a direct result of their own failings.

The object lesson here:
You mess with the bull, you get the horns.
 
"Taken advantage of"

Gizmodo was, in fact, a receiver of stolen goods, and he complains that the fence didn't give him the payoff he promised.

He walked off with somebody else's phone. When he figured out what he had, he sold it for money to an unscrupulous rag that has its own fake "news" exemption.

Maybe at the beginning, he didn't realize what he had done. The way to have fixed it was to call up Apple and tell them he had their phone. I'm sure he could have gotten himself a talk with Steve and an iTunes gift card, but he got greedy. My heart bleeds.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.