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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."
So they actually got it connected with a SIM card or WiFi before trying it and filming the result and that's how it got remotely killed by big brother?
Major FAIL !
Take a good look at the photo of the back of the phone. The bottom of the device looks white (like a white iPhone) and has the normal iPhone contours. That device is different from the other pictures they're showing.
And not showing the UI? Shenanigans!
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.
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
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...
Android getting too popular and want to create expecation Steve?
Dear
Doesn't sound like apple does it?
$5 says its some wannabe iPhone killer, just waiting for everyone to say how great it is before they go "tada! we secretly switched your java with folgers" in hopes of generating hoopla...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
"Let's work with Gizmodo to make a big deal out of this new iPhone. This is top secret stuff, and people are going to salivate over it like nobody's business." Maybe.
Obviously it's infected with some virus.
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.
No.
iPhones have supported remote wipe via Exchange server or MobileMe for a long time now. Blackberry and Windows Mobile can also do the same (through their respective servers, of course)
Surely Apple would want to use the same features it gives to customers to rein in lost devices on its own prototypes.
It's a selling point for some actually. The ability to wipe ones personal information off the phone in case it gets lost or stolen. Admittedly keeping sensitive information on a hand held is just asking for trouble, but being able to wipe remotely does have legit uses. Of course those are all out weighed by the possible abusive uses.
If you own the device, you can do this, too? Would it not make sense for Apple to be the owner of the prototype device and thus possess the ability to do the mobileme remote wipe? See MobileMe - Find Your iPhone, particularly the "Protect your privacy with Remote Wipe" section.
We know it isn't chairs, but one has to imagine that whoever lost this will be getting Job'd (or de-Job'd) in the near future.
(I know, the easy answer is "a massive fit, followed by going with a different vendor" but I was thinking something more physical.)
Unless this is just marketing, in which case, good show Apple. If I'm going to be marketed to, I prefer a little bit of drama.
If you look at the EXIF data on any of the images you can see Photoshop tags placed in the file. Not sure what if that means some "manipulating" was done, but I'm not sure why PShop was needed unless it was to change the format from TIFF to JPEG (which was done). It won't let me post the entire stream here but this is /., I'm sure you all know how to get the info yourself. :-)
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The best feature from the article
...it feels even nicer in your pants.
TFA says "The person was able to play with it and see the iPhone 4.0 features. Then, Apple remotely killed the phone before we got access to it."
It's interesting that Apple has this killswitch -- looks like a good security feature to have. I wonder if regular iPhones have it, and if it's available as a 'value-added-service'. Previously, the killswitch was only there to disable apps on the device.
As a side note, Apple builds in a bunch of other phone-home elements in their prototype/developer devices. They get cellphone operators who offer the iPhone to do a lot of field testing for them. Where I work, one of the dev people said pretty much everything you do on that phone gets reported back to Apple. Maybe that's how it is with other companies' products as well.
The Wknd Sessions - Malaysian and South East Asia independent music
Business LOVE remote wiping capabilities.
imagine you're the CEO of a fortune 500 company. you lost your notebook/iphone/whatever. it's full of data that could be worth millions to a competitor. wouldn't you want the ability to lock/wipe/destroy the unit remotely ?
we're not talking about pictures you took of your junk with the camera here. we're talking serious business. remote wipe in this case is a selling point that will definetely put the iphone into blackberry's turf.
What ? Me, worry ?
Come on , you barely get proper journalism in proper gadget magazines , just lots of hyperbole, poorly researched waffle and laughable tests. What makes you think you'll get it on a website full of wannabe gadget mag staff writers?
I find it really strange/coincidental that someone loses a device and it somehow finds it's way to a technology review website? We're not talking finding the Mona Lisa here where the average person would know what it is. We're talking someone in a bar finding a lost iPhone and then realizing that the best place for it would be in the hands of Gizmoto. Unless the Gizmoto guys were the ones that happened to find it. Again, like an employee of the Louvre finding the Mona Lisa.
I also find it odd that the bar would turn it over to a 3rd party, rather than holding on to it in case the original owner came back. Unless this bar has this behavior. For example, if you left your car keys there, they'd just give it to someone else.
I don't buy it. It might be a real iPhone prototype, but I think there's some shenanigans at work here. Maybe something along the lines of:
Apple: Hey gizmoto, we're going to "lose" an iPhone at a bar (really just hand it to you) then you write up a review of what you find as if you just happened to find it sitting at a table. If someone asks about it, we'll tell the media that "an internal source" has indeed lost a prototype.
Gotta love free advertising. I was wondering when the next iPhone/iPad /. frontpage article would take place. Also, the iPad does blend.
Can we please cut back on iCrap related stuff already? We've had more iPad news in the last weeks than Linux news in the last months. Will we get flooded by iPhone stuff now? Is this "News for Geeks" or "News for Hip Teenagers"? I don't give a shit about the iPhone, the iPad or whatever else Jobs can pull out his arse. It's alright to speak about it; I don't mind that. But this is bordering in spamming, sometimes two articles on the same damn thing per DAY! Are we going to get a news item every time someone farts at Apple?
/. with iPhone/iPad news feels like wasted bandwidth.
I'm sorry, but there's just so much stuff that can be covered that splashing
3 grams heavier
That's it, I'm not buying it. My manpurse is already getting heavy.
Does it not creep anyone out that Apple is willing to show off that it can wipe its phones remotely?
Anyone who owns an iPhone and has a me.com account has the ability to wipe the data remotely. The phone in question--assuming it really is a prototype--would be registered to Apple, hence they were able to wipe it. I don't think that means Apple can wipe somebody else's phone.
This ain't rocket surgery.
0) Fixed that for you; 1)Linux; 2)Car analogy; 3)Insensitive clod; 4)A Beowulf cluster 5)In Soviet Russia; 6)??? [citation needed]; 7)Profit!
It has become like one giant apple advertisement.
They used to have lots of different articles on a lot of different topics. Now they'll write 50 articles on a single device. Anyone who saw gizmodo on the ipad's launch day can attest to this. It's one giant fanboy fapping contest.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
The problem with this phone, even it if it is the new iPhone, is that it's like every other phone. It's almost identical to my Instinct. Why would Apple make a phone to look like this? I realize Gizmodo offered up a decent explanation for how it aligns with Apple's product line but to me it looks like anyone BUT Apple designed. If it's real, I hope it's a prototype that get's a redesign. I don't own an iPhone but I like them and would like to see them with continued differentiation from other phones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Never_Was
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Last time Apple had an iPhone leak it ended with a suspicious suicide of a Foxconn engineer in China. Just say'n.
And because it's thinner, it feels even nicer in your pants.
I *know*
As noted repeatedly in TFA, the phone actually has - gasp! - recognizable SEAMS!
Oh how the mighty have fallen.... I am so disappointed, and will choose to stay with my Moto ROKR!
Three Squirrels
I can just imagine the conversation inside Jobfinger's secret lair in the hollow volcano just outside Cupertino.... ....we never thought you idea of planting a dummy iPhone prototype in a coffee bar would work, but what do you know - they fell for it!
Lies!! All lies!! I have the new ipone right here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNy79_3PXCE
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.
me.com can be used to wipe your iphone.
Apple owns me.com.
Apple can wipe your iphone.
Pretty straight forward for me :) Just need a stray web admin and he could have some fun I'd guess =)
I dunno - if both sides of those seams can be electrically connected to the phone when it is assembled, I suspect it might make a fair WiFi antenna.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Doesn't mean they can't, either.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
So the next iPhone will have a flash.
Adobe must be pleased.
Was it just me or did the article completely miss settling the huge rumor of whether or not the CPU is the A4? The strings "CPU" and "proc" don't even appear in the Gizmodo article. =/
Planted!
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Doesn't mean they can't, either.
True enough, but the same thing could be said about a RIM Blackberry. I was just pointing out that there's no need to be overly paranoid about it.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Do you seriously believe anybody would go through the trouble of making a fake Apple device and dropping it on the floor in some Redwood City bar?
Many of these leaks and blurry photos are likely deliberate Apple marketing to generate buzz for their next phone. It makes it appear as if it's a must-have device and gets them tons of press coverage everywhere for free.
And you suckers fall for it every time.
Given Apples past of secrecy overkill , I think SJ would throw a fit and start firing lawyers at Gizmodo/anyone if this was the real deal. I think this is especially true since they apparently opened the phone and published details (kinda like reverse engineering to a degree). Nope, IMHO I think this is bogus.
What criteria change a lost item into a stolen item in circumstances like this?
Knowing roughly who it belongs to?
There's more to it than that. It's not just literal information on the phone, it's what that info can imply. If a CEO has e-mails stating that they knew about some insider trading or corporate espionage, or more legally buying another company or huge layoffs being planned, their stock price can tank. As such that data IS worth millions or billions to the shareholders if it leaks, and that's not taking mindshare into account.
I bet it is a i9+++ phone.
According to John Gruber ( http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/04/19/gizmodo-rumors ) , Gizmodo bought this stolen iPhone prototype from the people who "found" it. He considers it to be stolen vs lost, so I wonder how Apple would react to this.
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.
They said they were able to get to a "Connect to iTunes" screen (but no further), and that it was high resolution. Where is the screenshot?
Hands in my pocket
Does nobody own a loupe these days? Mark lines a mm apart (or get a damned scale), stick a loupe on in the face, and count the pixels. It's really not that hard.
Honestly, though, for the iPhone the hardware means very little. It's the software that makes the device what it is, and if you can't fix the software to work the way you want it to, it may as well be a deck of cards.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
rdf:RDF
xmlns:rdf = "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
rdf:Description
rdf:about = ""
It was generated by the RDF generator!!!
This space for rent.
If it's so important for Apple to get this phone back, I wonder why there's no reward...
Assuming the story is true, and not an act of viral marketing, Apple is under no obligation to offer a reward for their property. Gizmodo has a legal duty to return the property to its owner. Failure to do so is both a crime (petty theft) and something that they can be sued for (conversion). There's a host of other crimes and torts that they're admitting to.
Rewards are for the honest.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Point taken.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Not that a little bit of paranoia isn't healthy, mind you...
This ain't rocket surgery.
"And because it's thinner, it feels even nicer in your pants."
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. -- Wernher von Braun
"it feels even nicer in your pants"
*LOL* ... that's in the article.
[signature]
I want a tough phone, bring on the metal, thick reinforced glass, and boxy shape. I want to hold it up and stop bullets, make lunch plans with my wife, and then hammer in some nails with it afterwards.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
FTA (emphasis mine):
Internals components are shrunken, miniaturized and reduced to make room for the larger battery
Is it just me, or does someone need to stop repeating themselves, being redundant, and over-using synonyms?
On a more related note, this could be interesting if Apple also moved away from AT&T with this one. My Nexus One LCD just stopped working (didn't drop it or anything, just slowly turned pink then purple then black) and HTC is refusing to repair it under warranty. They want to charge 250 bucks to repair it when I bought it for ~180 with a 2-year contract! If this iPhone gets good reviews, and is not locked down to AT&T, Apple may have won themselves a new iPhone user.
SIG FAULT: Post index out of bounds.
Shennanigans regarding Engadget vs Gizmodo (bar in Redwood City vs bar in Cupertino) aside, there is an interesting question left:
Where is the rest of the hardware teardown? All we are given is a single photo of a ribbon cable inside the phone, but none of
the shots of the chipset, PCBs, layout, etc.
More interesting still is the fact that the one (uninteresting) photo of the disassembly is named open13.jpg, implying that there
was an entire series of these shots, including juicy things like the processor, etc.
Why are these photos missing? Careless omission, or is something else going on here?
Just my $0.02.
A man walks into a bar... FIRED!
heheh
The print on the back looks too ugly to me.
Admittedly keeping sensitive information on a hand held is just asking for trouble ...
Alas, it's practically unavoidable, short of not actually using it. Simple using anything is likely to leave evidence of usage, the details of which are going to be considered by many to be sensitive information.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
The remote wipe is a required feature for many enterprise users. The original iPhone OS caused grief when execs bought iPhones and they could not be wedged into the enterprise management in place already.
As to being required to return it to Apple, well, it is not an acknowledged product. Apple will likely be quiet until the real product is released. At least on the legal front. No messy need to enter the device into evidence and produce proof they actually own it.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Maybe they plan to post more photos later (to get more ad revenue)
Maybe there is something inside the phone that, if posted, would give away details of just which phone it is (and allow Apple to show who lost it)
Of course, that's assuming that the primary reason the iPad used the microSIM was to thwart iPhone users from dropping their SIM into their iPad, which is a pretty silly assumption, and probably not the case at all.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Certainly, one could go on, but your theory is so obviously bogus, that to enumerate more reasons why would border on humiliation, and the Bogon of the Day Award is really only about recognition of your accomplishment. Only 365 people a year get such an award, out of many, many millions who compete.
Congratulations!
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
No thanks. Apple might be going the right way in a fashion/marketing sense but not it's no good for tech oriented folks.
What tech oriented people would those be? Hobbyists? People with real tech jobs don't have a problem with it. I've been a developer for over a decade. If I really want to hack during my spare, I can use my iMac booted up in either OS X or windows. In OS X, I have access to the developers tools, languages like Ruby, Python, Perl and PHP. I can customize my desktop with geektool to run shell scripts or PHP pages on apache that scrape the web for gfx and other data.
I could also buy another iPhone, jailbreak it and install a bunch of shit on it but at the end of the day, I want an iphone that works well, not something that is slow and crash prone.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I checked out Gray Powell's MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/graypowell) page linked from another article and it showed his name as "Gray" with last login date as 4/20/2010. Then a few minutes later I refreshed and it showed his name as simply "g" and the last login date reverted to 4/19/2010. Is MySpace freaking out over the huge torrent of traffic that must be hitting this guy's page, or is something else going on here?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I wondered the legality of this whole situation myself. As it turns out, the item would be considered "mislaid property" and what the person who found it was supposed to do was leave it with the property owner (the bar in this case) on the theory that the person would return to reclaim their mislaid item.
Given that this didn't transpire, the finder of mislaid items is the new owner, unless the original owner returns to claim it. The law also talks about the new finder making a "reasonable effort" to return the mislaid item.
The finder did apparently did try to contact Apple... but has since sold it to Gizmodo. Apple has made a formal demand for the property being returned to them, so it will be... but the damage has already been done, to an extent. I wonder if Apple has any recourse at all.
Here's the CA penal code on the matter: Lost and Unclaimed Property. Article 1. Lost Money and Goods.
1) The device Gizmoto got their paws on is either a DVT or PVT device. Having worked for Apple years ago, I can tell you with some certainty that the device depicted in the photos is either a development prototype or a production prototype.
(In one of the teardown photos I am very sure a PVT/DVT sticker is visible on the battery.)
2) The unit was probably removed from the lab it was being used in without authorization.
3) From the buzz floating around the story it seems that who ever liberated it then got drunk and lost track of it.
4) Someone lifted it. (finders keepers? or more sneakily?)
4a)The someone who lifted it passed it off to someone who knew it wasn't a released model.
4b) I think that some money may have changed hands at this point.
5) New 'owner' blogs about the phone after playing with it for a while.
6) Apple manages to brick the phone remotely. Not sure how long this took.
7) Gizmoto tracks down the new 'owner' and after getting some confirmation decides to buy the phone for $5K.
8) Gizmoto does a teardown piece and publishes it.
9) Gizmoto receives an email from Apple's General Council bluntly ordering them to hand over the device.
The clowns at Gizmoto are fuxed. So is the guy who sold it to them.... and maybe even the person who 'found' it at the bar.
The (EX)employee who brought it to the bar is might face charges too.
Potential violations:
a) Theft (CA State)
b) Possession of stolen property (CA State)
c) transfer of stolen property/Making stolen property available for sale (CA State)
d) Transfer of stolen property across state lines (FED if it got sent to NY for examination)
e) various violations of UTSA... (Civil - for publishing trade secrets)
The really stupid part of it is that the entire adventure is well documented in public.
Enjoy your blaze of glory guys... I'm sure they are gonna love ya reeel good in prison.
Thank you for the extra research and clarification; that's good to know.
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
Read it and weep, fan boys.
I'm really bummed about the micro-SIM. I'm accustomed to buying a local prepaid SIM when I travel abroad for a long time (jailbroken, unlocked iPhone of course). Until and unless micro-SIMs become commonplace, I guess that wouldn't be possible with this phone. AT&T might like that, but I sure don't.
Anyone know if there's a straightforward fix to this problem? (Can we skip all the "buy an Android phone instead" comments. You know what I mean.)
I really feel sorry for the guy who actually lost the phone, seems like an awful bad thing to happen to someone, especially on their birthday. That said, I absolutely believe that what was found is going the new iphone, whether or not it is in it's final form or not, everything is just too well built for it to end up being just a Chinese knock off. It does seem a little bit sketchy for someone to find a phone, attempt to give it back, then sell it to someone else, all the while the original owner is probably lamenting it's loss and the probable loss of his job.