The 4G iPhone's Finder Reportedly Located

CNET is reporting that investigators have interviewed the person who found the unreleased Apple iPhone and began all the trouble. Wired reports that last week people "identifying themselves as representing Apple last week visited and sought permission to search the Silicon Valley address of the college-age man who came into possession of a next-generation iPhone prototype." "'Someone came to [the finder's] house and knocked on his door,' the source told Wired.com, speaking on condition of anonymity because the case is under investigation by the police. A roommate answered, but wouldn't let them in. ... News of Apple's lost iPhone prototype hit the Web like a bombshell, but it was apparently an open secret for weeks amongst the finder's roommates and neighbors, where the device was shown around mostly as a curiosity. ... 'There was no effort to keep it secret,' the source said. 'There were a bunch of people who knew.' ... Wired.com received an e-mail March 28 offering access to the device, but did not follow up on the exchange after the tipster made a thinly veiled request for money."

Comments

Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[Game_Ender]

This guy shopped around stolen property to find the highest bidder after making a feeble attempt to "return" it. I don't have much sympathy for whatever happens to the guy.

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[MWoody]

Agreed. Apparently, this guy thought when people say they're selling speakers that "fell off the back of a truck," it was a valid legal argument.

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[dxprog]

I guess Wired was a little smarter than Gizmodo.

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[Trepidity]

Well, in California selling lost property is equivalent to selling stolen property under certain conditions, mostly depending on whether the person who found it made reasonable efforts to return it to the owner first.

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[Ron Bennett]

He was only selling lost property. Nothing more, nothing less. People do this all the time. Why the hell do so many people think he did something evil?

So if someone finds your wallet at a bar, you're ok with them selling it? After all, in your view, it's only "lost property" and people "do this all the time" ... be careful what you wish for.

The correct, and easiest, course of action would have been for the person who "found it" to immediately hand it over to the barkeep.

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[BasilBrush]

Even IF the seller had gone to every effort to find and return the item to it's owner and failed*, it would only become his legal possession after 90 days. Selling something you don't own without the permission of the owner is an act of theft. What part are you not understanding?

* (Not that he did go to any reasonable effort at all. There were plenty of avenues to return the phone to Apple or the engineer or the police, all but perhaps one of which were not taken.)

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[jo_ham]

He claims (or rather Gizmodo claimed) that he called Apple's tech support line, which is staffed by people who don't work for Apple directly, and in call centres nowhere near the headquarters. They're not going to know about a prototype, and would either assume it was a prank call, or say they cannot help him, but to call Apple directly.

Apple's PR number is listed on their site right next to the tech support one, and that one actually *is* staffed by Apple employees in the HQ in California.

Either way, his next step should have been handing it to the police and signing an affidavit stating when and where he found the property (California law) if he didn't know who to return it to (and seriously, come on - do you buy the idea that he would believe Apple wouldn't want their prototype back if he had bothered to try to get through to someone actually at Apple HQ, for example, their PR department rather than their tech support). If no one claims it after a certain time, he can then keep it (and sell it on).

He could also have walked around the corner to Apple's HQ and said "hey guys, is this your lost iPhone prototype?"

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[MBCook]

People keep posting that, but I just find it so disingenuous.

• What part of Apple did he call? Tech support? That would be worthless. The Giz article said he couldn't send them a picture of the thing. Why not? Surely he had his own camera phone. If he sent a pic with the stickers on the back, I think he would have gotten a real response.
• He could have returned it to the bar, which would have solved everything. He could have at least told the bartender and given his number so the guy who lost it could get in contact with him.
• He could have given it to the police
• He knew the name of the Apple engineer. He could have called him, or looked him up. He could have found the guy's Facebook as Giz did. If he made a friend request that said "I have your iPhone", don't you think the guy would have responded?
• Why not take it to an Apple store? They'd be able to figure out if it was a cheap knockoff pretty fast (as Giz claims everyone first thought). Either way the manager of the store would know someone to contact at Apple to get it checked out.
• He could have gone to Apple HQ. It was only 20 miles away. As soon as he discovered it wasn't a normal 3GS and had part number stickers on the back, he could have easily walked into 1 Infinite Loop and turned it in.

It just sounds like he didn't make any real effort. Even ignoring the California "take it to the police" forfeiture law, it just doesn't sound like an ethical thing to do. If he took that to Apple headquarters, my guess is he could have received an award. He might have gotten a tour of Apple, some money, a chance to meet The Great Steve, a promise of a free iPhone 4G on launch day (or many be a free iPad). He couldn't have been a small hero.

I would even accept selling pictures of the thing to Giz (or someone else) and then turning it back in. At least he turned it back in.

Instead, he went for a payday. Then Giz got it and took 3 weeks to decide it was real and notify Apple, after cracking it open and posting all sorts of stuff about it. Then they named the poor guy who lost it and posted pics of his Facebook profile, which seems like rubbing salt in a wound.

Re:Sold Stolen Property to Highest Bidder

[nacturation]

I bet. They must be sooo angry about all this mysterious free hype and viral press coverage.

Press coverage does nothing for Apple when it's months away from anybody being able to buy it. Meanwhile, their competitors now have many months during which they can start cloning the design and/or features. Then, when Jobs launches the iPhone, everyone will say "Okay, but we knew that already. Nothing new here, folks." People won't be blown away by stuff they already knew.

What does that translate to? I'm guessing $50 million in lost opportunity cost. All the coverage is doing is potentially cannibalizing current iPhone sales if someone who was considering getting one now wants to wait. Additionally, their competitors now have an unfair advantage and will design their products not by guessing what Apple will be doing (as they normally do) but knowing what Apple will be doing. As a result, their competitors will save millions of dollars by not going down a course that they are now able to prevent. Further, all that wasted press coverage now means less when it actually launches. The hype and virality will be done by then. Oh, I'm sure it'll have some unexpected things... but the reduction will mean many more millions of dollars in free press that they won't get when it matters: when people can buy/preorder it.

The leg up that their competitors will receive from this information will have a ripple effect for years to come. That extra however many percent market share they are able to squeeze out by proactively countering (or sabotaging, even) Apple's strategy in a several billion dollar market is a huge cost to Apple.

Yeah, Jobs isn't going to be collecting food stamps and eating nothing but ramen noodles but this has a significant financial cost to Apple.

Obligatory YouTube Link...

[wbren]

Don't Talk to the Police

Re:Obligatory YouTube Link...

[Cowclops]

This isn't a troll. It is a law school professor explaining why that interacting with the police can lead to trouble for you down the road, even if you're innocent, and even if you say only things that would point towards you being innocent. Cops have absolutely no requirement to quote you in context, and out-of-context quotes can make a completely innocent statement sound strange. Furthermore, while cops can use anything you say AGAINST you in a court of law, if you ask them to repeat something you said that would help your case, that would be heresay, and therefore can not help you.

The cop's followup to the law school professor's talk is less interesting, but the very least it validates most of what the law school professor said.

So, indeed, do not talk to cops when you can avoid doing so.

IANAL, but I did watch the video in its entirety and you should at least watch the first half too.

Re:Apple can't obtain or act on search warrants

[nacturation]

Jason Chen at Gizmodo did nothing wrong. He notified Apple and promptly returned the phone.

Gizmodo: "Hi, Apple customer service? I think I have a new model of your iPhone here."

Apple: "Sorry, we don't know anything about that."

Gizmodo: "No? Okay, well I thought I'd try."

Gizmodo: "Here are the Facebook pics of the guy who lost the phone. Did we mention we paid $5000 to some dude to purchase this?"

Gizmodo: "We tried contacting Apple, but they wouldn't say anything."

Gizmodo: "See this information about the phone owner in Facebook? Haha. It's a public profile. What a shame there's no means to contact him from his Facebook profile."

Gizmodo: "Hey, we did nothing wrong. Totally good faith attempt on our part to contact Apple in order to return this."

Gizmodo: "Check this out. We took the fucking thing apart and here are detailed photos of what's inside it."

Gizmodo: "We have the utmost respect for whoever lost this as it's their personal property and we hope to return it shortly."

Gizmodo: "Damn, look at the design on this baby. Let's see if we can put it back together again and not have broken it."

Gizmodo: "We finally stalled enough that we coerced Apple legal into sending us a letter asking for its return. Cha-ching baby! We're fucking awesome. Did I mention we paid some dude $5000 after he claimed he 'found' it in a bar? We so fucking rock!"