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The Prototype iPhone Dissected, No User Removable Battery
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I don't get how the guy who "found" it was unable to return it to Apple..
Fine, email and telephone didn't work because they thought he was a nut-job, but...
The bar was 20 miles from Apple HQ, at the very least he could have stuck it in a Jiffy bag and dropped it off to "Gray Powell, Apple, 1 Infinite Loop".
Failing that, he could have addressed it to Steve Jobs, or the legal dept - I'm sure it would have found the way home..
Fine, email and telephone didn't work because they thought he was a nut-job, but...
The bar was 20 miles from Apple HQ, at the very least he could have stuck it in a Jiffy bag and dropped it off to "Gray Powell, Apple, 1 Infinite Loop".
Failing that, he could have addressed it to Steve Jobs, or the legal dept - I'm sure it would have found the way home..
He could have just given it to the manager of the bar or the local police department. Then he would not be a criminal and Gizmodo would not have purchased a stolen phone.
Who cares...
I have been using a first gen iPhone for over to years and have yet to need a second battery to get through a heavy day of use. Put your phone on a charger you fools. Lame complaint in my opinion.
I have been using a first gen iPhone for over to years and have yet to need a second battery to get through a heavy day of use. Put your phone on a charger you fools. Lame complaint in my opinion.
Well no real surprise about the battery, just hope it can keep going a bit longer than before!
Not to pick at you (the rest of your post was interesting) but, in the UK, if coke left their ingredient list on a train, for example, this would not usually be considered loss of a trade secret. Anyone who found it would be obliged to return it, if it was revealed they could be taken to court. This is because it is not really public domain yet, just a single piece of paper obviously left accidentally. Now if CocaCola sent it as a flyer across a city then yes they would loose the status!
The iPhone was an Apple trade secret, and although leaving the device in a bar is clearly a big mistake, US courts do offer some protection if an employee accidentally discloses the trade secret in 'violation of their duty of trust'. Another requirement of a trade secret is that the company makes an effort to keep it secret. Apple themselves have clearly done this, employees sign NDAs, the device was kept in a case to disguise it, the software was wiped and it is pretty safe to assume the employees testing it are told to look after their prototypes! It is not Apple's fault that the device was left behind, so they may have made a reasonable effort, in the legal sense, but nobody can be sure.
If Apple did make that effort then Gizmodo were free to have a look, but they should not have divulged the information to the public domain. They did not steal the device, but they may have divulged a trade secret. Having said that Apple probably don't want the bad press from taking them to court.
EDIT: Sorry, not Gizmodo the actual individual(s) who found it.
Not to pick at you (the rest of your post was interesting) but, in the UK, if coke left their ingredient list on a train, for example, this would not usually be considered loss of a trade secret. Anyone who found it would be obliged to return it, if it was revealed they could be taken to court. This is because it is not really public domain yet, just a single piece of paper obviously left accidentally. Now if CocaCola sent it as a flyer across a city then yes they would loose the status!
The iPhone was an Apple trade secret, and although leaving the device in a bar is clearly a big mistake, US courts do offer some protection if an employee accidentally discloses the trade secret in 'violation of their duty of trust'. Another requirement of a trade secret is that the company makes an effort to keep it secret. Apple themselves have clearly done this, employees sign NDAs, the device was kept in a case to disguise it, the software was wiped and it is pretty safe to assume the employees testing it are told to look after their prototypes! It is not Apple's fault that the device was left behind, so they may have made a reasonable effort, in the legal sense, but nobody can be sure.
If Apple did make that effort then Gizmodo were free to have a look, but they should not have divulged the information to the public domain. They did not steal the device, but they may have divulged a trade secret. Having said that Apple probably don't want the bad press from taking them to court.
EDIT: Sorry, not Gizmodo the actual individual(s) who found it.
My iPhone is currently nearing the 2y mark (3G, purchased june 2008).
With wiFi on, and with intermittent use of 3G it lasts from morning to evening, but not from morning to morning, implicating i have to give it two recharging sessions per day. The OS 3.1 update did very little to improve on the situation, you could say it just bumped back the battery degradation process by a few months.
And OH! Those battery times mentioned are for summer/indoor temps. If I'm outside in the winter (I'm at 60°10′15″N 024°56′15″E), which lasts for 8-9/12 months, and If I don't keep the phone so that it can enjoy bodily warmth the battery lasts 3-4 hours. Tops.
These numbers are about a third of what they were at time of purchase.
Considering that dragging the phone to an authorized repair shop (there are some in town, but i Pity all the rural iPhone owners) and paying a horrendous amount of money (and actually leave the phone to be picked up later) are steps which could be avoided I do not consider Apple to be very user friendly here.
Anecdote: I was with a friend taking his 3G for battery replacement, the serviceperson was unable to estimate how long the process would take (they were very very busy, but so they always are), so he offered to call when it's ready. Hilarious.
I understand Apple's logic behind it: Less creaky enclosures, no third part exploding batteries etc... It all makes perfect sense.
At least assuming that all users are urban users.
In this country where I live about (quick calculation) about 40% of the population live within 50 km of an apple service and 65% within 100 km. At the same time <90% live with access to 3G services, so there's a lot of people who are quite annoyed at not being able to yourself replace the battery.
'nuff said.
Pekka
I love Finland.
Apple doesn't really care about anyone other than the American though, this is what the iPhone is tailored towards.
Gruber is a whiney mupppet, he's just bitter that Gizmodo got it and not him. I'd imagine his pride is dented after pronouncing it a fake only to be proven very very wrong. So much for these so-called 'experts' (not that I put much faith in the twoddle that the man spouts out).
true, but at the same time it is probably true. They described the screen, why not have a picture of it? They did mention the teardown was difficult, maybe they screwed something up along the way and werent able to fix it before they identified it as a legit iphone after finding the APPLE print on the wires.
No matter if it's true or not: A sad commitment of a new device. Disillusioning.
Personally I prefer waiting for Apple's keynote with shiny and brilliant product photos. We can't change anything of the features, so it makes absolutely no difference if we (the possible customers) know it two or three weeks sooner or later.
Thanks, G*****o. Bad photos, bad videos, bad story. Not even great news. Not exklusive at all. I hope desperately that it's not a bad sign for next generation iPhone.
I really wish they could figure out a way to do that...the iphone battery isn't good enough NOT to have a replaceable battery. I bought one of those extra batteries that you plug one when desperate, but that's not a very nice solution since you still have to wait for the iphone to charge rather than just pop in a charged battery and keep going.
Oh well...
Sending Gizmodo a cease-and-desist at this point wouldn't really accomplish much... since they'd likely just ignore it. I'm sure Gawker Media already consulted their lawyers before doing what they did.
On the surface, I'm not really sure Apple can really prosecute Gizmodo legally. I mean, the guy that found the phone said he attempted to return the device but Apple ignored him (according to Gizmodo). If this is true, then it could be a good legal defense: "I tried to return their property, but they wouldn't take it."
Gizmodo may have paid for the phone, but as they've already stated... they weren't COMPLETELY sure it was Apple's. It could have been one of the many knock-offs. Apple hadn't publicly stated that they lost an iPhone. Certainly, I don't know that it could be considered "sale of stolen property" since the guy found it... He supposedly attempted to return it. In any event, Gizmodo was fully willing to return the phone to Apple when asked. They had no intention of keeping the device, so really they just paid to get the phone, take pictures, and then return it to its rightful owner.
All this anti-Gizmodo sentiment seems to primarily be coming from news sources that are likely pissed they didn't purchase the phone. Many places just assumed the phone was FAKE. (Once again, how can it be "knowingly purchasing a stolen product" if everyone's saying that it isn't Apple's? For all anyone knew, it belonged to the guy that had it.)
It seems Gizmodo did spend time taking apart the leaked next generation iPhone while they had it in their possession. They've posted a tear-down but unfortunately little new information was discovered. One question answered, however, is the fact that there is not a user replaceable battery as some had speculated.
Other notes:
- Battery takes up 50% of iPhone
- Circuit board encased in metal, thermal paste, black tape.
- They were unable to delver further without damaging the device
- No details on processor, memory, etc...
- No user-removable battery.
Article Link: The Prototype iPhone Dissected, No User Removable Battery
Good news for me... Hate removable battery!!!!!!
Good job APPLE !!!!!!!
Keep in mind, the first Unibody MacBook Pros (like mine) had a user-replaceable battery. However, they traded that convenience for a longer-lasting battery. I'd assume there's something similar going on with the iPhone. It'd be nice if they made everything with replaceable batteries, but I just don't see Apple doing it.
Perhaps if Android phones start stealing Apple's market share, then maybe we'll see Apple try to compete with things that other phones have (such as a replaceable battery and more open app store). Otherwise, Apple probably won't do much.
The higher-res screen is likely there because other phones started using high-res screens, so there's always hope for improvement due to competition.
Removable batteries don't last as long as fixed ones, the covers/mechanisms to hold them in tend to break and cause structural weakness in the phone design - every time I drop my HTC, the back flies off, the battery jumps out of it's holder, then I get the pleasure of waiting 2-3 minutes for the phone to start up again, all for the sake of a full battery which gives me a maximum eighteen hours.
Apple will never return to easily swappable batteries - battery life on all their devices has nearly doubled since they took the decision, and they offer very inexpensive replacements in-house. Let's face it - very few people keep a mobile phone for over two years, they just upgrade, if after two years $80 is too much to ask for a new battery (which is roughly what a hot swappable battery and charger would have cost) then I think some people need to look at their financial priorities.
i have updated the picture
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/11/iphone_4g_midboard-1.jpg
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/11/iphone_4g_midboard-1.jpg
So I presume you'd be quite happy if you lost your iPhone in a bar and the person who found it sold it to someone else? Really. Try and think a little before you post.
Jeez the number of people here who think that the law of the land seems to boil down to 'finders keepers'... Everyone else better hope that whoever finds their lost iPhone isn't a Macrumors reader.
If you look at the teardown you'll see that the bottom 1/4 of the phone is a separate part, and that's where the seams are. Then there's also an opening on one side for (relatively) quick battery replacement, so that it can be performed in Apple Stores. If they've filled the seams with rubber or similar, I guess it's to stop dirt from building up in there.
Oh come on. At least 50 out of a 100 people who found it would have said "finders keepers" and never bothered to contact anyone. 49 out of 100 would have made a half-assed attempt to return it somehow, perhaps by calling and emailing like this guy did. And you're lamenting that this guy wasn't like the 100th person who would make it into his full-time job to return the phone?
It's really too bad they were not able to figure out what processor it was running. It may have strengthened the possibility that it was a next generation legitimate prototype or a really good fake mockup.
Further, I can count on one hand the number of people I know that actually own two batteries and swap them out.
All batteries are removable with an angle grinder and a crowbar.
But this is *not* a user replaceable battery.
C
That is no defence in law. Besides, as has already been stated, the device should have been handed in at the bar and/or reported to the police.
Ignorance of the law is no defence. Gizmodo knew EXACTLY what it was doing - why else did they pay 5,000 for it? Purchasing (technically) stolen goods, tampering with property that doesn't belong to them, knowingly divulging sensitive commercial information that doesn't belong to you which could seriously harm a company's sales or give benefit to its competitors...the list of infringements Gizmodo has committed is as long as your arm. If Apple decide to take legal action against them, which they probably will, I would say they could take Gizmodo to the cleaners.