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This Is Apple's Next iPhone
An anonymous reader writes "There has been some speculation about it. Not anymore: 'This is Apple's next iPhone. It was found lost in a bar in Redwood City, camouflaged to look like an iPhone 3GS. We got it. We disassembled it. It's the real thing, and here are all the details.' Judging by Gizmodo's reaction, it looks like a winner."
And they "got" it from whom? Directly from Larry Lightfingers, or via Frankie the Fence?
J'accuse: they're dealing in stolen property, and they know it, or should know it. But ethics be damned, because ZOMG IPHOAAAN!!!!11! Right?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If you'd actually read the article, you'd know why they consider it to be a next gen Apple phone (many parts inside branded APPLE, in a case designed to make it look like a 3G iPhone, behaves just like an iPhone when you connect it to a Mac, uses the Mac proprietary dock connector, etc, etc). Are you saying that everyone at Engadget had been fooled, or are you saying they are playing a late April Fools joke on us? Frankly I don't think either is very likely.
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
Whether this is truly a new iPhone or not, Gizmodo's opinion doesn't count for much. They would adore Job's lunch kit if they found it in an alley
The phone is still too big for those of us who want to use it for jogging. There are plenty of apps related to jogging, not to mention the whole "portable music player" feature. But the phone is just too bulky to take jogging.
Something a quarter of the size would be great. Keep the resolution, but shrink the whole thing by half in both dimensions and you'll keep perfect compatibility with existing apps.
I'm sad to see that this looks like more of the same old same old. It'll be another iPhone that I have to pass up because it just isn't what I need.
Embarrassing, how the media got played to do advertisement for them. Goodbye, journalism.
With both engadget and Gizmodo getting their hands on the "next iPhone" in different bars in different cities, it is difficult to believe that somebody actually lost the phones. Either both engadget and Gizmodo got fooled or this is more a marketing campaign than lost phones. I would bet on latter.
"Oh hi you techreporters. I'll just be finishing my drink and then conveniently leaving my NEW FREAKIN' IPHONE 4 *cough* here for someone totally random to find."
What? It could happen...
From TFA: > So I called around, and I now believe this is an actual unit from Apple -- a unit Apple is very interested in getting back. If it's so important for Apple to get this phone back, I wonder why there's no reward...
How do you read the sentence a unit Apple is very interested in getting back. and NOT think Apple offered Gizmodo something in return for the phone? Information, maybe, if not direct money. I'm aware the sentence didn't contain the word "reward" but you can read between the lines.
According the TFA the phone was functional before being remotely wiped by Apple. Certainly people do walk around with camouflaged, functional engineering samples during the testing cycle for new phones. I know employees at Nokia are often given pre-release hardware to try out both in the building (early testing) and outside the building (later in testing)
It really does sound like this is a real unit. It may have been leaked intentionally but that doesn't make it less relevant.
The only thing that makes me suspicious is that I cant find any report on what chip it is using. I would expect them to say something about that, even if all they said was that the processor didn't have any markings on it. I would think that would be one of the first things they would look at.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Considering how Gizmodo always squees over every little thing Apple makes, it seems specially suspicious
No sig for the moment.
If Apple (or someone employed by Apple) actually lost their prototype iPhone, why didn't they use the FindMyPhone feature to locate it and go get it back?
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
It doesn't sounds like marketing to me.
This is classic textbook Apple advertising of a new product. Next some specs will be leaked and posted online, and after sufficient time that anybody is interested can see them, Apple will start issuing takedown notices. Are all of you really not going to remember that Apple has done stuff like this in the past??
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me dozens of times, I'm an Apple customer."
"But this one goes to 11!"
Um...no, we haven't. In fact, there's barely been any iPad news. Meanwhile, there was a story about Linux not attracting young developers, an analysis of Linux's shared kernel memory, GPL compliance checking in embedded software, how Android's Linux changes will make it back to the main source tree, how the WePad tablet will use Linux, etc.
I get that Apple competitors post here and are trying to drum up some lame anti-Apple sentiment, but lying will get you nowhere.
Only can a true fanboy turn the phrase "like a Braun product from the 70s" into a compliment. Because we all want to show off our new iEpilators.
Only someone with zero knowledge of design history would make such a statement. Braun's industrial design has been an explicit influence on Jonathan Ive's work at Apple.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Might be time to start taking your meds again.
I'd say that that is the invisible hand doing its thing.
Ok, so you are a person of somewhat dubious character who "finds" cellphones in bars(whether you did in fact "find" and made no effort to return, or whether you make a profession of "finding" is unclear; but immaterial). Now, you happen to "find" a rather curious device, a clearly Apple-looking cellphone that doesn't publicly exist. What do you do with it?
To an ordinary fence, it is worth fuck all. Because it is a prototype, it is "hot" and probably being watched more closely than usual. Because it is a new model, none of the grey market hacking/unlocking/re-IMEIing/etc. tricks used to run iPhones in various dubiously licit secondary markets are going to work.
To a gadget site, it is worth serious pageviews, plus a fair bit of fanboy wank.
It seems pretty obvious which one of these potential customers you would get in touch with.
Of course, the primary reason the iPad used the microSIM was supposedly just to that iPhone users couldn't just pop their iPhone SIMs into the device, but had to sign up for another $30 per month to use the iPad in cell modem. That's defeated if the new device supports the microSIM.
-Dave Haynie
The fact that Apple is apparently not pursuing Gizmodo over this doesn't indicate to me that the product is not genuine, it indicates to me that Apple was complicit in Gizmodo getting this device. It was on purpose, Apple handed the thing straight to them (in a bar in Redwood City, apparently).
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
You'd have to remember it, since the phrase has absolutely no legal basis and would subsequently be absent from any published legal rulings. Like, ever.
If you'd actually read the article, you'd know why they consider it to be a next gen Apple phone ...
I RTFA yesterday and the what the article says doesn't matter. The picture of the back of the device - the only part that displays the Apple logo or any other Apple info - is not the same device as the other photos. They're not claiming the found two separate new iPhones.
They had the stupid thing taken apart, but the article doesn't mention the CPU used or the amount of ram/flash on it.
Both are trivial to find unless the manufacturer took a file and removed the markings from the chips.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Apple is clearly no longer the leader. This phone is their admission of that fact. They hope packaging will save them.
Apple was never the leader in features or chipsets. However, they are the leaders in packaging, marketing, and UI (the latter being disputable by some folks, especially on Slashdot). And those things translate into mindshare and sales.
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