Finder of Lost Next-Generation iPhone Identified

[tigres]

except, of course, if you go by california state law.

but who does that, right? am i right?

Sure, I bet the 21 year old kid pulled out the Calafornia penal code book on the spot and lawyered himself up.

I am not defending him for not choosing the course I would have, but let's not throw the book at him before it is written.

 

[nikhsub1]

Grey or gray Powell is 27 years old. That is past the age of innocent. Most employers hire people with the purpose of being mature people. Spin the yarn however you like but it's not apples fault that the phone was lost. That burden is on gray or Grey.

You just dislike apple and can't be rational about it so your taking the facts out of context and inserting it the way you wish it was

I don't dislike Apple but this incident has me reconsidering that. The dude who lost the phone was a Apple employee, therefore Apple lost the phone. How is that not Apple's fault? Apple can do no wrong? You don't think they should let it go already?

 

[RidleyGriff]

Then they shouldn't send out retarded employees who LOSE PRE RELEASED PRODUCTS AT BARS IN A DRUNKEN STUPOR. Wow are you guys dense.

I'm reticent to use this example, but I don't know if there's any better way to exemplify how silly your argument is:

If a girl goes out to a bar, has a couple of drinks, comes on to the wrong guy and is then attacked, is she at fault because she was "IN A DRUNKEN STUPOR", as you say? Or would it be because her skirt was too short?

Blaming the victim is the weakest kind of argument. Finders-keepers, losers-weepers isn't the way the civilized world works. That's why we have laws specifying as much.

The truth is, NONE of us know what really happened -- all you are basing your opinion on is the reports of the people that sold and/or bought the thing. In other words, the people who have every interest to present an argument that makes them blameless.

So ease up on your name calling. It doesn't make your ridiculous argument any more convincing.

 

[Eidorian]

Yes. It's creepy that "representatives of Apple" show up on the doorstep (they don't call, they don't have the police do it for them) of an individual they've tracked down, and when the individual isn't around they still ask the person who opened the door if they can come in and search the home? Assuming they were allowed inside, assuming the phone was not in plain view, how would the search proceed? I'm really scrambling here for a mental image that doesn't involve men in black pulling out drawers and turning them upside down, but it seems I don't have any non-creepy images in stock for this scenario.

Money does strange things to people. Are they really people anymore?

 

[wovel]

I think this whole thing blew out of proportion - I personally think both Giz and this guy should get off the hook. Apple just learned an important lesson....

Don't go to a bar in a short skirt and stand by the pinball machine?

 

[cmaier]

Yes. It's creepy that "representatives of Apple" show up on the doorstep (they don't call, they don't have the police do it for them) of an individual they've tracked down, and when the individual isn't around they still ask the person who opened the door if they can come in and search the home?

And if instead of going themselves they sent the cops, everyone would be bitching just as hard.

And who said they asked to search the home? Isn't it more likely that they asked to speak to Hogan?

 

[UbuntuFu]

I don't blame this guy, I would of done the same thing, except I wouldn't have sold it for 5000, I would of just given away to Gizmodo for free.

One, I don't trust bars and clubs. You can turn something in, and they'll just take it and say nobody turned anything in. Especially an iPhone.

Two, if the phone was disabled like that, it no longer works. So what use would it be to me? When I opened it and realized it was not a 3GS but a prototype of a future phone, I would of realized it could be legit. But for all I know, it could be Chinese knockoff and the guy put in a custom case to make it look like a 3GS. Thus, I would give it to Gizmodo and they can contact Apple for me.

I'm surprised there was no passcode on the phone! I have mine set for 5 minutes of inactivity. Anyway, if he had seen Gray Powell's Facebook page, I would of contacted Gray through Facebook and ask him to identify it and then return it.

If that guy didn't receive $5K for the phone, I don't think many people will have a problem. Apple got their phone back. It wasn't stolen, it was lost by a careless employee.

 

[MH01]

Don't go to a bar in a short skirt and stand by the pinball machine?

Nope, Hire engineers that can drink like man and not girls.

 

[DakotaGuy]

If you stole something from me, I'd probably come by and try to get it back from you before calling the cops and ruining your life. Or maybe not. Hard call.

To me a private citizen coming up to my house to discuss something that was stolen is different then a Corporation asking to search my house. They already knew that someone else had the phone at this point so why would they need to search the property? They weren't searching for a phone they were trying to search for evidence. To me that should be left up to law enforcement with a search warrant.

I would probably do the same if I thought someone had something that was mine, but I am not convinced they were there to look for a stolen phone.

 

[nikhsub1]

I'm reticent to use this example, but I don't know if there's any better way to exemplify how silly your argument is:

If a girl goes out to a bar, has a couple of drinks, comes on to the wrong guy and is then attacked, is she at fault because she was "IN A DRUNKEN STUPOR", as you say? Or would it be because her skirt was too short?

Blaming the victim is the weakest kind of argument. Finders-keepers, losers-weepers isn't the way the civilized world works. That's why we have laws specifying as much.

The truth is, NONE of us know what really happened -- all you are basing your opinion on is the reports of the people that sold and/or bought the thing. In other words, the people who have every interest to present an argument that makes them blameless.

So ease up on your name calling. It doesn't make your ridiculous argument any more convincing.

Your argument is totally irrelevant. In your example, someone violently raping another person is HARDLY the same as a drunk fool losing a phone. Get real. Please use your brain.

 

[UbuntuFu]

I'm reticent to use this example, but I don't know if there's any better way to exemplify how silly your argument is:

If a girl goes out to a bar, has a couple of drinks, comes on to the wrong guy and is then attacked, is she at fault because she was "IN A DRUNKEN STUPOR", as you say? Or would it be because her skirt was too short?

Blaming the victim is the weakest kind of argument. Finders-keepers, losers-weepers isn't the way the civilized world works. That's why we have laws specifying as much.

The truth is, NONE of us know what really happened -- all you are basing your opinion on is the reports of the people that sold and/or bought the thing. In other words, the people who have every interest to present an argument that makes them blameless.

So ease up on your name calling. It doesn't make your ridiculous argument any more convincing.

That's even sillier, you're comparing a LOST item to a human being.

 

[PhoneyBoy]

Boohoo. Let's get real for a second. An Apple employee LOST THE PHONE. Let's not forget this. HE LOST THE ****ING PHONE. Apple needs to ****, put there tail between their legs and get over it. All of you defending Apple's actions are nothing but suckups.

I'm glad I don't have to live near you!
Yes they lost the phone, but the person who found it unfortunately seems to be a dishonest and unprincipled person, just like you.

The right thing to do would have been to try to get the phone back to the owner, instead the finder decided he would not do the right thing but would make some money. He know it was an important device, he therefore knew the person who lost it would no doubt be in a lost of trouble, but being the selfish person he is he decide to not help the person who lost the phone but to help himself.

I really hope that should you ever lose something you come across a similar person rather than someone honest. Let's just hope they rip you off too, you won't mind.

 

[jayducharme]

This was on Woot today:

Dear Diary,

Oh. My. God. So I was staring out the window, you know, at Gizmodo’s house, when suddenly, like two thousand cops just came running in out of nowhere! I was totally freaking! I mean, what if they found that hand-made card with the sparkly unicorn I left on Jason Chen’s doorstep! I signed it “Secret Admirer” for a reason, after all. If he knew it was me, I’d just die! So I grabbed my HP Ultra Dual Core Entertainment Notebook, figuring, you know, it runs Windows 7 and all, so maybe it would impress him at how cutting edge I was, and I hurried over to see what cool thing he was doing now. Oh, Diary, I’ve got to eat dinner now with my stupid stepbrother, but I’ll finish this right after, I PROMISE! You won’t BELIEVE what happened next!

 

[wovel]

Sure, I bet the 21 year old kid pulled out the Calafornia penile code book on the spot and lawyered himself up.

I am not defending him for not choosing the course I would have, but let's not throw the book at him before it is written.

I suppose after his year in jail he could sue his parents for not teaching him a basic sense of morality and the requirement of every citizen to understand the law.

 

[*LTD*]

Sounds like a theft ring, never mind just a couple of people.

 

[cmaier]

Sure, I bet the 21 year old kid pulled out the Calafornia penile code book on the spot and lawyered himself up.

Um. I don't think that word means what you think it does.

 

[ouimetnick]

Why is this Apple doing evil? It was wrong for the guy to sell the phone, as if he owned it, to a tech publication, and wrong for the tech publication to pay for it and post images of it, dissecting it, etc.. That was all wrong. You can't say it's right? Like it or not, Apple is doing business in a very competitive world and they have to protect their product from the competition.

Well fanboy, Apple hired an ass hole. That ass hole chose to bring a million dollar phone to a bar. He knew it was HIS birthday, and most likely was drunk of HIS ass and LOST the phone. It's apples fault this entire thing happened.

 

[Mac OS X Ocelot]

Still not sure how this is causing any monetary damages to Apple at all.

They should be paying this guy for all the publicity that is now going around for what would have been the first anti-climactic iPhone release.

Apple's unveiling promo material:

"Some people would pay $5000 for the new iPhone. Your price is just $500."

"Get the phone people have gone to jail to see."

"Redmond, get your thieving cronies ready."

"Buy the new iPhone. We won't break down your door and search your home. Promise."

 

[Anuba]

No, for one thing it was INSIDE an existing iPhone 3GS case...it wasn't found exactly as you see in the pictures. So to anyone just looking at it, it would have appeared as a regular iPhone 3GS.

I know about the damn camouflage case, but it was designed to look inconspicuous at a distance, not to pass for a 3GS when you get a good close look at it. Have you seen the thing? It's an unmarked black case with big ol' holes cut around buttons/jack/connector, and since it's physically impossible for a case to have the exact same physical proportions as the device it's supposed to contain, a monkey could've figured out that it's not an actual iPhone 3GS, and the same monkey could also have removed the case with little effort (it takes one hand and 2 seconds, as demonstrated in the Gizmodo video). This particular "monkey" did exactly that, the morning he woke up hung over from the night before when he found the phone.

 

[muskratboy]

so that quarter.... never returned u say??? Careful folk in this forum might consider that theft!

only if they turned around and sold it.

 

[wovel]

That's even sillier, you're comparing a LOST item to a human being.

No he was comparing the absurdity of blaming the victim to the absurdity of blaming the victim...

 

[PhoneyBoy]

A criminal if I have ever seen one.

Just another normal person who found a strange phone, but lets hang him just for kicks. Right fanboys.

Who then stole it and decided to sell it for $5k.

I can see what your morals are. NONE!

 

[Tailpike1153]

If I lose my iPhone and some guy found it and sold it but told me who he sold it to, then it's up to the person he sold it to, to give it back. It's not this guys fault for finding the phone and WAITING where he found it for the person to come back and claim it... it's the person who lost it's fault. This is crazy, this dude is 21 years old! What's Apple going to do next...

Yeah. Except Cali law says you can't yell finder's keepers 5 minutes after you find something.

 

[Bytor65]

Thief? Yes.

If I drop my wallet and some guy picks it up, pockets my money and tosses the wallet, he is a thief.

I lost my wallet once, but I was lucky someone like this guy didn't find it, because we know what he would have done.

I got my wallet back from a complete stranger, with all my money intact.

He didn't even mention it to the bar staff (probably because that would have led to it's return). He didn't even call Apple himself, a friend "purportedly" did that for him.

What he did do was contact a bunch of publications fishing for a payout, which he eventually got.

He is far from innocent and deserves whatever he gets here

 

[stukdog]

I think the biggest point here is that Gizmodo's stories and alibis are falling apart with all this info coming out. Gizmodo said that the finder repeatedly tried to contact Apple. Turns out he didn't do anything.