Apple Loses Another 4th-Gen iPhone

An anonymous reader noted that Apple appears to have lost another of its 4th generation iPhones. This doesn't seem like the most efficient distribution mechanism, Steve. Wonder if the SWAT team will get called in.

Comments

Part deux

[Dan East]

Looks exactly like the phone Gizmodo got their hands on, except this one has a SIM slot on the right. I tend to believe these are the real deal.

Re:Part deux

[Rallias Ubernerd]

Whether or not they're real, whats so special about a robbery?

Re:Part deux

[grub]

The phone wasn't lost, it was just stuffed up someone's ass and they didn't want to admit it.

Weren't they worried about the greased Yoda doll scratching the lovely oleophobic touch screen?

Re:Part deux

[Rallias Ubernerd]

No they decided this was more valuable

Re:Part deux

[elrous0]

Not funny. Do you realize how long my father carried a watch up his ass when *he* was in Vietnam?

Re:Part deux

[ArsenneLupin]

even assuming foul play, pickpocketing != robbery.

robbery implies threats of violence. You can bet, if there was robbery involved, the victim would have come forth. Pickpocketing, on the other hand, the victim might not yet have noticed.

Re:Part deux

[dburkland]

Haha thanks for the morning laugh, always room for Pulp Fiction references

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

even assuming foul play, pickpocketing != robbery.

robbery implies threats of violence.

So if someone breaks into your house while you're away on vacation, you can't say that you've been robbed?!?!?!?

Re:Part deux

[no1nose]

Isn't that called burglarized?

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

Allllllllllllriighty then!

Re:Part deux

[sortius_nod]

Larceny is the word you are looking for I think.

Re:Part deux

[Bombcar]

Andre... you've lost another submarine?

Re:Part deux

[kiwimate]

even assuming foul play, pickpocketing != robbery.

robbery implies threats of violence.

So if someone breaks into your house while you're away on vacation, you can't say that you've been robbed?!?!?!?

This is one of those areas where /. readers love to pontificate on the precise meaning of words and totally lose sight of what the intent might be.

So, if someone breaks into your house, they can:

* take pictures of every page of your diary;
* write down your social security number and any passwords they might find;
* take a copy of your spare set of car keys;
* format your hard drive;
* ...after they've copied all the files, including your final draft of the book you're writing for O'Reilly.

But in the world of /., nothing tangible has been taken from you, so it's not theft or stealing. (It's not even copyright infringement, in the cases posited above.) Neat, huh?

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

The Gizmodo one was an unfinished prototype, they had to correct the impression.

If enough people bitch about the camera resolution on this one they will lose one with a better camera next. We'll probably see a lost piece of packaging a bit later in the production process.

Re:Part deux

[smitty97]

Gizmodo's had it on the right side too. What's missing on this new one is the screws next to the speakers.

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, and the word you're searching for is trespassing

don't let your shallow language knowledge hinder you on your way to dig.

Re:Part deux

[king-hobo]

what is this Google News outage? tell me about it..

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

ally lose sight of what the intent might be.

So, if someone breaks into your house, they can:

* take pictures of every page of your diary;
* write down your social security number and any passwords they might find;
* take a copy of your spare set of car keys;
* format your hard drive;
* ...after they've copied all the files, including your final draft of the book you're writing for O'Reilly.

But in the world of /., nothing tangible has been taken from you, so it's not theft or stealing. (It's not even copyright infringement, in the cases posited above.) Neat, huh?

Yeah, and if I see someone fail to stop on the red lights, I can't call it hit-and-run! And have you even tried to call jaywalking embezzlement? People behave as if words had some kind of agreed-upon meanings!

Re:Part deux

[toooskies]

It's breaking and entering, identity theft, and unauthorized access to a computer. Those crimes probably involve a longer amount of jail time, combined, than simple robbery.

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry Part Deux, but the poster was using the legal definition of robbery. For a robbery to occur force or the threat of force must occur. Thus, if someone puts a gun in your face that is a robbery but if they pick your pocket that is theft.

Further, if someone breaks into your house while your gone, that is breaking and entering and is a crime. If they break into your house and steal your stuff that is a burglary. If someone enters your property illegally that is trespassing. All of these are crimes but NONE is a robbery.

Regards

Joe Dokes

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, still B&E...

Re:Part deux

[Altus]

Ive always preferred 'burgled'

Re:Part deux

[lymond01]

Summary of differences between Burglary, Robbery, Theft, Larceny...

To summarize:

Robbery: Stealing something from a person with the threat or application of force
Burglary: breaking into a structure with the intent of committing a crime
Larceny: like burglary, only you didn't break in, you walked in. "Along with motor vehicle theft, larcenies can include purse snatching, shoplifting, theft of any bicycle, fraud, embezzlement, identity theft, forgery, con games, etc"

So...in the attempt of burglarizing someone's house while they sleep, you might wake them up and force them to tell you where the safe is. You're now a burglar and a robber. I suppose "robbing" a bank with a gun while it's open, while certainly robbery, may also be considered larceny since banks are public buildings.

Re:Part deux

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Another tragic fisting accident. When will people learn to take their watches off before playing?

Re:Part deux

[binary paladin]

Hahaha.

Now I need to go watch that movie.

Re:Part deux

[PedoPope]

Looks exactly like the phone Gizmodo got their hands on, except this one has a SIM slot on the right. I tend to believe these are the real deal.

Look again: the sim is on the same side. http://cache-02.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/04/500x_iphone11.jpg

Re:Part deux

[BitZtream]

I tend to beleive these are some cheap knockoffs made in Asia.

The device is simply too ugly for me to believe its from Apple.

Re:Part deux

[geekoid]

do damn long for a 2 dollar watch.

Re:Part deux

[geekoid]

IT's not theft or stealing,. it IS breaking and entering.
It's aslo will full destruction or property(erasing the hard drive).

We we have actually crimes for everything you listed we don't need to use incorrect verbage in order to illicit an emotion response to understand when something is wrong.

Also, in a court of law a charge of theft wouldn't hold up in the examples you gave.

Why would you want to call breaking and entering, or even trespass, theft? it make no damn sense.

Re:Part deux

[toadlife]

I tend to beleive these are some cheap knockoffs made in Asia.

Them being knock offs would mean that Apple filed a false police report.

Re:Part deux

[BrokenHalo]

we don't need to use incorrect verbage in order to illicit an emotion response to understand when something is wrong.

Exactly true. I think the correct verb for which you seek is "elicit".

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

Now this is just getting stupid.

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

Burglary: breaking into a structure with the intent of committing a crime

So...in the attempt of burglarizing someone's house while they sleep

Dammit no! The verb for breaking into a house is "to burgle", not "to burglarize". Someone who burgles is a burglar, so "to burglarize" would mean "to turn someone into a burglar" or "to become a burglar". Obviously, you can't do that to a house

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting, I had looked away from my browser and looked back, and I thought I was reading a comment about the Facebook article that was recently up. Relating the above assertion to personal information, I can't think of /. agreeing in general.

Once I realized this was an leaked hardware case, it all made a lot more sense.

Re:Part deux

[Anne Thwacks]

Maybe he cant, but I can... Mwa ha ha!

Re:Part deux

[bill_mcgonigle]

damn, that's spooky, my thoughts exactly.

Re:Part deux

[Alphathon]

As already stated, no theft or stealing has taken place in that set of crimes, unless you count identity theft. Here is what they would (probably) be called:

• Invasion of privacy
• Identity theft with possible unauthorized access to a computer if that is where they are stored.
• Tricky one, but presumably unless the person breaking and entering/entering unlawfully is carrying key-making equipment, they would have to steal the key to make a copy, so that would be theft. Whether the act of duplication is illegal or not I don't know (may come under identity theft or have a specific unauthorised duplication of keys law) but the act of using the duplicated key would certainly come under unlawful entry.
• Unauthorized access to a computer, destruction of property
• Unauthorized access to a computer, copyright infringement and/or corporate espionage

As for the breaking in, that would be breaking & entering and trespassing. Basically, just because you don't know the specific term for an offence does not give you free reign to lump it in with something else. Also, the copying of "the book you're writing for O'Reilly" WOULD be copyright infringement as long as you have written copyright info in it somewhere

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

My childhood has been turned on its head.

He wasn't the Hamburglar, he was the Hamlarcener.

Re:Part deux

[Freultwah]

Isn't that called burglarized?

No, he clearly meant "robberized".

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

You might not want to lecture people on "incorrect verbage [sic]," geekoid.

aslo will full != also willful
We we have actually crimes != We have crimes
emotion response != emotional response
it make no damn sense. != It makes no damned sense.
etc.

Also, you are missing many commas.

Oh, and verbage is not a word. Verbiage is, but it doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct. But I could say I'd been burgled.

Re:Part deux

[HermMunster]

If you run a stoplight and fail to go in voluntarily and pay your fine isn't it theft--stealing from the city? Ha!

Re:Part deux

[carp3_noct3m]

Side note: Probably involve longer jail time than murder or rape too.

Re:Part deux

[Kenshin]

Larceny: like burglary, only you didn't break in, you walked in. "Along with motor vehicle theft, larcenies can include purse snatching, shoplifting, theft of any bicycle, fraud, embezzlement, identity theft, forgery, con games, etc"

Any bicycle? You mean there aren't some you can steal?

Re:Part deux

[pluther]

Also, it was his nounage that was off. The verbage was correct.

Re:Part deux

[dwarfsoft]

Actually, I believe taking the files including your final draft of the book you're writing for O'Reilly is most probably copyright infringement. Considering that you own the copyright to what you have written you can then assume that by duplicating that they have infringed on your copyright. Proving that they have would be rather troublesome unless they were caught however.

Re:Part deux

[BitZtream]

You know how good Apple is at misleading rumors?

Re:Part deux

[dangitman]

$5,000 dollars isn't cheap for a phone.

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

Larceny is the word you are looking for I think.

Larceny is the word for common law (and in many jurisdiction only historical) offence which requires 1)The taking of some tangible property for which the accused has neither any right nor consent of the owner to take; 2)Its asportation (carrying away); and 3) an intention permanently to deprive the owner of it.

Robbery has/had the same three elements but adds a fourth: the use of actual violence or the threat thereof.

Burglary requires 1) Breaking into a dwelling; 2) at night; and 3) an intent to commit a felony (eg. larceny).

Note that these common law offences have almost universally (in the common law world) been replaced with statutory property crimes.

Re:Part deux

[lemoon]

maybe! if really, but Is Gizmodo a bit over the top? eher, just wanna get the first iphone OS 4 info, no need to.... and isn't apple consistently keeping secret? well, lose control? more apple, ipad, iphone info: http://www.ifunia.com/resources.html

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice sig. It's fun pulling shit out of your ass. But it's even more fun quoting other people pulling shit out of their asses isn't it, douchebag?

Re:Part deux

[dudpixel]

even assuming foul play, pickpocketing != robbery.

robbery implies threats of violence.

So if someone breaks into your house while you're away on vacation, you can't say that you've been robbed?!?!?!?

This is one of those areas where /. readers love to pontificate on the precise meaning of words and totally lose sight of what the intent might be.

So, if someone breaks into your house, they can:

* take pictures of every page of your diary;
* write down your social security number and any passwords they might find;
* take a copy of your spare set of car keys;
* format your hard drive;
* ...after they've copied all the files, including your final draft of the book you're writing for O'Reilly.

But in the world of /., nothing tangible has been taken from you, so it's not theft or stealing. (It's not even copyright infringement, in the cases posited above.) Neat, huh?

um, I do believe it IS copyright infringement.

You may not be aware, but you automatically own the copyright to anything you create. This copyright may or may not be enforceable in a court of law, but if someone copies your work without your consent, that absolutely is copyright infringement.

oh, the crime would be known as "breaking and entering" / "trespassing" (as someone has already pointed out)...

remembering that if you cant prove they took anything, then they're unlikely to be charged for theft.

what was your argument again?

Re:Part deux

[Wovel]

Or burglary.

As a side note, the correct word for finding something and selling it to someone else without making a reasonable attempt (or by the admision of the thief in the Apple case, no attempt) to return it to the original owner is theft.

Re:Part deux

[Rallias Ubernerd]

Technically under Minnesota Law its is considered theft (the destruction of property that you could have made money on, you are owed 7 times as much money as has been taken from you.)

Re:Part deux

[Anonymous Coward]

There has been quite a bit stolen from you... like sense of security. and even though nothing tangible was taken its still burglary of a habitation.

Re:Part deux

[Chosen Reject]

Also, the copying of "the book you're writing for O'Reilly" WOULD be copyright infringement as long as you have written copyright info in it somewhere

You don't have to write any copyright info in it. The moment you write anything, it is copyrighted. You do have to register it to file suit however. Which means you can add copyright infringement to "take pictures of every page of your diary". Though you'd have to register your diary before filing that infringement suit.

Re:Part deux

[drkim]

No, the word you're looking for is "burglary."

For example:
California's Penal Code, Sec.459:
"Every person who enters any house (and a bunch of other places) with intent to commit grand or petit larceny or any felony is guilty of burglary.

So if they enter with the intent of say, wiping your hard drive; they could be guilty of Penal Code, Sec.502 as well as the Sec.459 burglary.

Re:Part deux

[kiwimate]

Search for "google news outage september 22". (I don't know what comes up on Google; I use Yahoo as my default engine.)

Here's a good link. Google Outages Damage Cloud Credibility. It came a couple of days later and gave a roundup of recent Google outages. Specifics about that outage: look here.

I think it was particularly newsworthy because (a) it came on the heels of several other outages; (b) /. has had several stories about the debates with newspaper publishers, online aggregators, pay for content, etc.; and (c) this was now leading to questions about "is the cloud ready for prime-time" beyond just Google.

(Update: I just checked the same search on Google, and the first link is their app status dashboard). Looks like GMail has had problems over the last week.)

Re:Part deux

[king-hobo]

thats interesting, especially the app status dashboard, i didnt even know that existed

Wow.

[somersault]

After all the fuss with the last one.. you'd really have to be a complete and utter moron to do this. Did Gray ever get fired for loss of the first phone?

Re:Wow.

[mcvos]

Did Gray ever get fired for loss of the first phone?

For that matter, has anyone heard anything from him recently?

Re:Wow.

[elrous0]

No communication is allowed in or out at Apple's re-affirmation camp.

Re:Wow.

[natehoy]

No, he's been relocated to Cancun in punishment for instigating such a successful publicity campaign.

Re:Wow.

[virgilp]

I think I read somewhere that Apple decided that they won't fire him, instead as a punishment he would be relocated to Apple's office in Vietnam.

Re:Wow.

[DrgnDancer]

I don't know this for a fact of course, never met the guy and don't work for or know anyone who works for Apple, but I read an article online by Woz talking about another Apple engineer who *had* been fired for something. As an aside in that article Woz mentioned that Gray had *not* been fired. It didn't sound like there was an implied "yet" in the article... he seemed to believe that Gray's job was safe.

Re:Wow.

[Dog-Cow]

Of course not. He lost his phone.

Re:Wow.

[speculatrix]

as a punishment he'll be analysing competitors products like windows 7 and symbian, using an old 386SX-based computer running windows 3.1

Re:Wow.

[Eponymous Coward]

They won't fire him. For one, he's a talented engineer. Those aren't exactly easy to find. Also, they aren't done going after the guy who sold the phone and the people bought the phone. They may need his testimony and employees tend to be much more cooperative than ex-employees.

Re:Wow.

[glebd]

He was sent to Vietnam as punishment. Oh wait...

Re:Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't easy to find? I've got a ton of them unemployed here in Raleigh.... let us know who needs them.

Re:Wow.

[InlawBiker]

With all the free press they're getting, I'd say they're scheduled to lose one every 30 days or so.

Re:Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend who works at Apple tells me he wasn't fired.

Re:Wow.

[f3rret]

Eh no-one is 'loosing' these phones, it's all Apple's PR division doing sneaky stuff.

Re:Wow.

[hitmark]

indeed, its like the health of jobs all over again.

Re:Wow.

[jarden_from_cerberus]

No communication is allowed in or out at Apple's re-affirmation camp.

Sounds like they need to get AT&T out there to install a cell tower.

Re:Wow.

[elrous0]

No, they need to get Verizon out there to give them new cellphones.

Re:Wow.

[HermMunster]

This is going to be an unpopular question, but is Steve a Scientologist, heh?

Re:Wow.

[HermMunster]

One of the other employees had taken Woz aside after the demonstration by Steve Jobs. He showed the iPad? to Woz and to another guy. For breaking protocol he was fired.

Gray lost the phone and in order to save his face he is claiming it was stolen. They can't fire him for keeping with protocol, even if the phone was stolen.

Re:Wow.

[Mike Buddha]

Gray lost the phone and in order to save his face he is claiming it was stolen.

He wasn't claiming it was stolen, it was stolen. Picking up a lost item in a restaurant and not turning it in to the management or the police is stealing.

Re:Wow.

[HermMunster]

That's bullshit. It wasn't stolen. It was lost. He's now trying to cover it up by claiming theft.

Re:Wow.

[pipedwho]

That's bullshit. It wasn't stolen. It was lost. He's now trying to cover it up by claiming theft.

Yes, it was stolen. This was covered heavily in previous articles on the 'lost' iPhone. The only way it could be said to not have been stolen was if Gray sold it or voluntarily gave it to the guy.

Taking something that is not yours, whether permanently or just to 'use and return', is the definition of stealing. It doesn't matter if the phone was unattended on a bar room seat, or if it was taken straight out of the guy's pocket.

Theft (by finding or otherwise) is extremely well defined in just about every penal and civil code in every jurisdiction worldwide. I would suggest you read up on your local laws before you decide to walk off with someone else's property and end up being prosecuted for theft.

"But the bike was just sitting abandoned on the side-walk! Finder's keepers losers weepers!" is not a valid legal defence. Nor was it a valid excuse when you were still in kindergarten.

Re:Wow.

[RocketRabbit]

I would bet he is. Battlefield Earth is one of Apple's "Hot Picks" in the iPad's iBooks app.

Re:Wow.

[Wovel]

Unless of course you live by the laws of the State of California.....

Re:Wow.

[Deefburger]

It's quite possible that their test team is tailed. The opportunity to pilfer the phone would be all they need to make a quick buck by selling it to the competition. I have seen this kind of thing before, and it is precisely why most companies keep their development separate from the rest of the company, as well as the public at large. Apple may have figured the first loss was accidental, and never suspected targeted theft. They may have assumed that no one outside the company would have recognized a next gen phone over a current gen phone. The fact that two phones of this type were lost in such a short span of time is evidence of a targeted theft, and I would expect Apple to pull the rest back in house and not let them out any more after this.

Just a thought

[sheph]

Couldn't be intentional to drum up interest?

Re:Just a thought

[Pojut]

I think at this point, it would have to be...years of successfully controlling leaks, and then a prototype for the same product line gets leaked TWICE within weeks of each other? Yeah...I could believe the first one to be an honest mistake, but there is no way this one wasn't planned. /tinfoil hat

Re:Just a thought

[danny_lehman]

i thought about that i bit. it's certainly different from their usual intentional leaks. maybe they just learned how to put on a better show.

Re:Just a thought

[mvar]

it's called marketing

Re:Just a thought

[sctprog]

You could be right.. but that doesn't really seem to be Apple's way..

More likely there's an employee in the right place wanting to make a little extra cash.. at least til

Re:Just a thought

[mtinsley]

Step 1: "Lose" prototype
Step 2: Have police raid reporters home
Step 3: Repeat

Any publicity is good publicity?

Re:Just a thought

[sctprog]

*till he gets caught..

(sorry for having to reply to myself)

Re:Just a thought

[crossmr]

speaking of which, what is this i-phone thing anyway?

Re:Just a thought

[Aeros]

Isnt this just Apples new way of selling iphones for $4000-$5000 a pop?

Re:Just a thought

[natehoy]

Just a thought. Is water wet? :)

One of these leaks is "probably" an intentional marketing campaign. Two, in the course of a few short weeks, is falling deeply into "Captain Obvious" territory.

Stevie loves to be in the headlines, but doesn't have any new ohh shiny to show off right now. These prototypes are cheap advertising.

Re:Just a thought

[natehoy]

The early prototype for what eventually became the Palm Pre, Blackberry Bold, and Nokia Symbian phones.

Some people still buy them out of nostalgia for the good old days when you weren't bothered with having to tether, were protected from the confusion of too much choice in applications, didn't have to deal with the hassle of replacing batteries, could concentrate on doing only one thing at a time and your phone supported this by not multitasking, and when "(whatever memory is installed in the phone) is enough for everybody".

Ah, memories.

Re:Just a thought

[Dracker]

Probably not, for two good reasons.

-Apple has taken legal action against the journalist at Gizmodo reporting on the previous prototype. This would not have happened if the leak was intentional.

-Apple is not stupid. They know about the Osborne Effect - that releasing too much hype and information on new products causes immediate losses as people who would have bought the current product sit and wait for the new product's release instead.

Re:Just a thought

[pastafazou]

or a decoy to mislead the competition into thinking the next version is just a revision, and the real 4th gen is quite different?

Re:Just a thought

[gEvil (beta)]

Step 1: "Lose" prototype

I believe in this case the prototypes have been loosed.

Re:Just a thought

[mapkinase]

This reminds me of a Russian joke:

- Your honor, the victim accidentally tripped and fell on my knife seven times.

Re:Just a thought

[Coder4Life]

Here, I fixed it for you

Step 1: "Lose" prototype
Step 2: Create mystery around 2 similar but decidedly different scenarios
Step 3: ???
Step 4: PROFIT!!!

Re:Just a thought

[PopeRatzo]

There's a guy facing serious legal repercussions over the first "leak". He had his house searched and computer equipment seized.

So if it's not real, they owe him an apology.

Re:Just a thought

[cowscows]

Or maybe with Apple currently being more successful that it's ever been, and the iphone being a hugely popular device right now, the temptation to learn or share privileged information is just well beyond anything that Apple has seen before?

Apple would have zero problems getting more "legitimate" news coverage if they wanted it. They're always so careful with the aesthetics of their marketing, why would they want to leak grainy photos and poorly lit videos by random people when they could easily get crisp clean front page covers of a dozen different magazines/website? I guess they could be trying some sort of "underground" marketing strategy, but that doesn't make sense for a company where image is very important.

Re:Just a thought

[Thanshin]

The early prototype for what eventually became the Palm Pre, Blackberry Bold, and Nokia Symbian phones.

What are those? Like castrated Nexus Ones or Legends? ... Nexi? Nexuses?

Re:Just a thought

[Bing Tsher E]

Apple would have zero problems getting more "legitimate" news coverage if they wanted it.

It's pretty well established that they've saturated the 'legitimate' news coverage recently. We all groan now at yet-another-Apple-stunt. How far will they reach? Only their marketing staff knows for certain.

Re:Just a thought

[asukasoryu]

why would they want to leak grainy photos and poorly lit videos by random people when they could easily get crisp clean front page covers of a dozen different magazines/website?

You have to ask what Apple would think is a more effective strategy. This tactic could send nerds into a frenzy of speculation, drumming up much more hype than if Apple had done a succinct magazine ad. Apple can employ this method to get some publicity and still follow it up with a legitimate ad campaign. It's a double win.

Or this could be a clever ploy to divert our attention away from the inadequacies of the iPad.

Re:Just a thought

[FreeUser]

I think at this point, it would have to be...years of successfully controlling leaks, and then a prototype for the same product line gets leaked TWICE within weeks of each other? Yeah...I could believe the first one to be an honest mistake, but there is no way this one wasn't planned. /tinfoil hat

This time...maybe, as an attempt to turn lemons into lemonade with the last leak. But the fact that they sumarily fired the engineer who left the iPhone in the beergarden, and sent the swat team in after the reporters who reported it, indicates that at the very least, the first leak was unintential and that Steve Jobs only comment was something along the lines of "we are not amused."

Re:Just a thought

[Sockatume]

This presents an obvious solution for the next one. Apple just have to make sure that one of those handsets leaks, and then no further leaks can happen.

Re:Just a thought

[LoudMusic]

And you know this because you read it on the internet? The same place the hardware was 'leaked'?

It's really easy to lie some more once you've started.

Re:Just a thought

[lowrydr310]

Sprint needs to learn a lesson about this effect, especially with regards to their Android phones. They currently offer only two models, the Samsung Moment and HTC Hero. I stopped following all the details when I heard that they're still running old android versions, and only recently (as in five days ago) did they announce that Android 2.1 will be available for these phones 'soon.'

Meanwhile, I've seen lots of hype for the HTC EVO on Sprint, which is supposed to be one fine piece of Android machinery. I'm about due for a new phone as my CrackBerry is showing wear and tear and doesn't hold a charge like it used to three years ago, however I'm in no rush to buy a current Android phone from Sprint considering the new one that's coming out soon. On top of that, I'll probably end up waiting six more months to a year for the buzz to wear off and for prices to drop to a reasonable level.

If the timing is good, Verizon will get an iPhone which will distract everyone from Sprint, and then Sprint will offer a blowout price ($99) for the HTC EVO just to attract some people.

Re:Just a thought

[asukasoryu]

-Apple is not stupid. They know about the Osborne Effect [wikipedia.org] - that releasing too much hype and information on new products causes immediate losses as people who would have bought the current product sit and wait for the new product's release instead.

Apple is not stupid? So you think Apple is not doing this on purpose? Yet after losing one prototype they failed to put the necessary measures in place to prevent a second loss. Either Apple is stupid or they are tricky. Hmmm...

And why would Apple want people to buy a new product instead of the current offering? Because they can charge more of course.

Re:Just a thought

[Jake73]

How come the display never changes? It's stuck with that "fireball" image on there. I cry fake.

Re:Just a thought

[DrgnDancer]

you weren't bothered with having to tether

iPhones can be tethered without Jail Breaking now. Have been able to for some time.

were protected from the confusion of too much choice in applications

Yeah, because the 50,000 or so on the App Store last I checked is a terribly small number and indicates a horrible lack of choice ::Eyeroll::

didn't have to deal with the hassle of replacing batteries

I'd grant you that this is a valid point, except it's never been a problem for me. The device lasts all day with heavy use. At the end of the day I can charge it. Under some unusual circumstances I guess I can see this one, but day to day it's hardly a major issue.

could concentrate on doing only one thing at a time and your phone supported this by not multitasking

The operating systems multitasks. It just doesn't run multiple custom apps at one. Given it's CPU and RAM footprint, and the size of the screen, not to mention the excellent message passing libraries, this isn't much of a hardship.

and when "(whatever memory is installed in the phone) is enough for everybody".

Again a valid point, but not one that really seems to affect me. I've never needed it to have more than 8GB of storage, and the new ones have twice that (or 4 times that if you pay for it).

All the legitimate problems with the iPhone (tied to AT&T, crappy networks in numerous major cities, underpowered (until the 3GS) for it's OS, crappy camera, etc) and you just gotta spout the same (often incorrect, rarely serious) spurious, stupid complaints.

Re:Just a thought

[Guspaz]

My iPhone 3GS supported tethering from day one, you insensitive clod. Virtually all carriers support iPhone tethering.

Re:Just a thought

[interkin3tic]

Yeah...I could believe the first one to be an honest mistake, but there is no way this one wasn't planned. /tinfoil hat

Tinfoil hat? Why are you wearing a tinfoil hat in response to this? Are you saying the 4th gen iphone will be able to read your thoughts?!?

Man, I may have to actually start giving two shits about this if it requires a tinfoil hat.

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

It sure seems like it.

Because anymore... Day after day of stopping in to check the news... I don't give a crap about the iphone anymore.

Yet /. keeps telling me about it.

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Some type of phone, I think. Android based devices outsell it.

Re:Just a thought

[gotpoetry]

You make valid counter points, but people often adjust thier behavior to the capibilities of a device.

"Doesn't have multitasking" - I won't listen to Pandora while I read email.

"No replaceable battery" - I won't use it on the plane to watch that movie, that way I can make sure to call a cab when I land.

"It can be tethered now" - I have AT&T and they don't allow tethering, but the AT&T 3G network is so crappy I won't even bother.

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Your pedantic post got his entire point backwards. ::Eyeroll::

I mean, that's hilarious. He's saying that the old phones were better because you did not have 50,000 apps to choose from. What the fuck were you ::Eyeroll:: about?

You completely failed to read his post and made an idiot of yourself.

Re:Just a thought

[flanaganid]

If you buy phones the way I buy toothpaste, the iPhone isn't for you. (For the record, I use Crest Pro-Health Sensitive Shield that fights Cavities, Gingivitis, Plaque, Sensitivity, and Tartar plus Whitens and Freshens Breath. The more superlatives, the better.)

Re:Just a thought

[ukyoCE]

I think at this point, it would have to be...years of successfully controlling leaks, and then a prototype for the same product line gets leaked TWICE within weeks of each other?

OR, maybe Apple was trying a new approach of letting engineers take phones off campus to usability test them under real conditions.

With a second lost phone, I assume whoever was against letting devices off campus will win the internal argument that it was a bad idea.

Re:Just a thought

[toooskies]

I think they're related, just not in the way you think they are. A person reads the first story of the lost phone, and realizes that pre-release iPhones are worth a ton of money. Say this person works on the iPhone assembly line for pennies a day. All of a sudden, they figure out they can pocket one little device they work on all day and sell it to any old web site they want and make $4000-- enough money to be worth going to jail for theft over, if that's more than your annual income. Especially if they can argue to pay back the actual cost of the item, roughly $300 worth of parts.

Re:Just a thought

[Dracker]

Apple is not stupid? So you think Apple is not doing this on purpose? Yet after losing one prototype they failed to put the necessary measures in place to prevent a second loss. Either Apple is stupid or they are tricky. Hmmm...

And why would Apple want people to buy a new product instead of the current offering? Because they can charge more of course.

There is a difference between carelessness regarding prototypes and stupid marketing through uncontrolled hype. It is possible for Apple to have one of these qualities without the other.

Securing the next generation of one of the hottest devices on the market while testing them in the wild is not an easy task. What "necessary measures" would you suggest?

Re:Just a thought

[DrgnDancer]

No, my dear Anonymous, you misread his comment. He was sarcastically claiming that the iPhone (any iPhone, not just the first Gen) is a "prototype" for other, more recent, phones like the Blackberry Storm, The Palm Pre, or any of the various Android phones. Not that the current version is more advanced than the older versions.

Re:Just a thought

[DrgnDancer]

But you can listen to the media player while reading e-mail. That's my point. The OS does multitask. All of the Apple provided Apps will run in the background while you do something else. The media player will run behind anything, the phone App will, the E-mail app does. It's just that you can't say, leave AIM open while you browse the web. Which seems bad, but there are also messaging libraries that will allow you to continue to get AIM messages, while you're browsing the web. You just have to reopen AIM to respond. Which, considering the small screen size and limited resources, is a modest sacrifice. Reopening doesn't really take much more time than switching between running Apps would have.

As to tethering: http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3gs/tethering.html

I don't have a 3GS, so I don't know much beyond what's on the page, but it appears to be supported.

I did grant that the battery thing was a semi-valid point, but only under fairly unusual circumstances. I've watched hours of video on my iPhone and still not had to recharge it till that night. It can go for about 2.5 days of light use without a charge, but even with heavy use it'll last 14-16 hours (no you won't get 14-16 hours of continual video, network, or phone use. That stops being "heavy" and becomes "continuous", and falls under the "unusual circumstances" clause)

Re:Just a thought

[theVP]

Article by PC World: http://www.pcworld.com/article/195185/gizmodos_iphone_saga_fact_vs_speculation.html Judging by the article, this guy did get raided, and is considering suing the police. They're still trying to figure out if he's protected by journalism shield laws. If Apple's actually pulling the strings, there are better ways to hype your product than to get into several legal battles. The very idea that they are, is ridiculous.

Re:Just a thought

[Lumpy]

"Doesn't have multitasking" - I won't listen to Pandora while I read email.

Sorry but most smartphones did not do this either. A very VERY small number of people want this. and many that did have it on a WM5 phone hated it as the phone would crawl because of having apps in the background running consuming processing power. My older Nokia smartphones also suffered from multitasking apps. nothing like getting the battery sucked dry and the phone taking 12 seconds to answer a call because of some damn app in the background using up the system resources.

"No replaceable battery" - I won't use it on the plane to watch that movie, that way I can make sure to call a cab when I land.

I have never met a person that carries around spare phone batteries. Plus anyone that even had a Palm Treo had the same problem. not easy to replace battery on smartphones has been a theme. Ever try to replace the battery in a Blackjack? the battery door self-welded shut every time you put it back on.

"It can be tethered now" - I have AT&T and they don't allow tethering, but the AT&T 3G network is so crappy I won't even bother.

It always was able to tether if you got away from a sociopath carrier. Unlock it to go to t-mobile and you can add a tethering app or more recently use the built in function.

I have been a smartphone user for over a decade. I have used them all. and I currently have an iPhone because the apps that work with my workflow are on it, I don't have to reboot it weekly, and being a phone is first priority to it. I have never had a call I could not answer because the damned phone was busy... Unlike Windows Mobile phones. or have a phone freak on certain callers... like my Nokia E62 did.

there are some "neat-o" things I would like to do. Like have the phone report my GPS location every 15 seconds to my server at home. It would be cool to have the house see that I am on my way home and turn the heater on the hot-tub on when I am within a 15 minute distance, or make other decisions when it senses I am on a return path. but I can live without that, or simply grab the phone, fire up the crestron app and press the button myself.

I also still have not found a single Apple-hater that does not change their mind when I actually show them what I do with my phone that they CANT do with theirs. (lack of "app for that"(tm)(r) on their platform mostly)

Recently the biggest was sitting at a bar, talking to a client, filling out and sending them an invoice and then processing a credit card payment over the phone right there after they got the invoice. A colleague freaked and instead of doing his typical, frothing at the mouth apple-hate, started asking serious questions about it more.

Re:Just a thought

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

You make valid counter points, but people often adjust thier behavior to the capibilities of a device.

True. But they also sometimes find that reality doesn't live up to theory. I thought copy/paste would be a huge hindrance. I've had it for a while now and used it like... twice. Flash? Thought I wanted it yet don't miss it. There's adjustment and then there's it just not being the bfd that everybody thought it would be. I would think Linux users who are happily away from Windows would understand this.

Re:Just a thought

[nEoN nOoDlE]

They're reaching for the super early adopters. Man are they gonna be pissed when the iPhone 4G comes out in a few months at a tenth of the price.

Re:Just a thought

[Amouth]

you weren't bothered with having to tether

iPhones can be tethered without Jail Breaking now. Have been able to for some time.

you make this claim.. please show proof?

Re:Just a thought

[holmstar]

Appears to be a testing application... based on the name, and the fact that it displays battery percentage, I'd guess that it might be a high usage battery drain test... ie: load up the processor/wifi/etc to see if the battery meets spec. (doesn't overheat, etc)

Re:Just a thought

[Skadet]

iPhones can be tethered without Jail Breaking now. Have been able to for some time.

Please, please show me where. I've been banging my head against a wall trying to do it. The carrier update hasn't worked in months.

Re:Just a thought

[natehoy]

Really? They haven't come out with an Ultra version yet? How disappointing. ;)

Re:Just a thought

[BigSes]

Nokia Symbian

This name always bothered me. Its way too close to Sybian.

Sybian

Re:Just a thought

[bingoUV]

I thought you got caught.

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they're related, just not in the way you think they are. A person reads the first story of the lost phone, and realizes that pre-release iPhones are worth a ton of money. Say this person works on the iPhone assembly line for pennies a day. All of a sudden, they figure out they can pocket one little device they work on all day and sell it to any old web site they want and make $4000

... by moving to the US and selling it together with an iPad. RTFA.

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't just a joke. The official police report regarding the death of of a young man in the Ukraine (not a personal acquaintance of mine; removed by one degree) was that he bashed his head against a pole repeatedly until he first lost consciousness and then died of brain trauma.

A year or two later, the report of a journalist's (as I recall; maybe it was a minor politician) death concluded that he committed suicide by shooting himself in the forehead twice.

Re:Just a thought

[cayenne8]

"iPhones can be tethered without Jail Breaking now. Have been able to for some time."

Not in the US. As far as I know...ONLY can be done by jailbraking in the US.

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Please list one thing an iPhone can do that any of the new Android phones can't. I'm waiting. Show your Apple hating friends the new Nexus and they will forget all about your iPhone and continue their hatred of Apple products.

Re:Just a thought

[jittles]

I wish my iphone battery lasted me all day. Is using it as a paper weight considered heavy usage?

Re:Just a thought

[DrgnDancer]

http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3gs/tethering.html
From the horse's mouth.

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

As well as Blackberries.

Re:Just a thought

[Amouth]

"Tethering is not currently offered in the U.S."

From the horse's mouth.

Considering that is their largest user base at the moment.. it is relevant.

Re:Just a thought

[asukasoryu]

LoJack, a big chain, self-destruct mechanism. With all the bright minds at Apple, surely they can think of something. Unless their employees are being robbed, it doesn't seem that hard to keep track of a phone. If I was entrusted with a prototype (especially at super secretive Apple), I'd be more careful. Losing one prototype is carelessness; losing two is foolishness.

Re:Just a thought

[Bert64]

Proof:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3gs/tethering.html

Re:Just a thought

[BobMcD]

To be clear. You said 'media player', but he said 'Pandora'. I don't have an iPhone, but are those the same thing?

Re:Just a thought

[agent_vee]

were protected from the confusion of too much choice in applications

Yeah, because the 50,000 or so on the App Store last I checked is a terribly small number and indicates a horrible lack of choice ::Eyeroll::

Whether its 5 apps or 50,000 apps, Apple is still the one that decides which ones you can install.

Re:Just a thought

[DrgnDancer]

After reading Pandora's website I may have made an invalid assumption here. I was thinking Pandora was just another media player. Now I'm kinda curious about this, I'll have to look into it more.

Re:Just a thought

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Why does it have to be a replaceable battery, rather than an external battery? There are plenty of the latter available for the iPhone.

Re:Just a thought

[Amouth]

"Tethering is not currently offered in the U.S."

Considering that is their largest user base at the moment.. it is relevant.

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

control Crestron home automation or Conference room automation gear.

It cant do that.

Lumpy nailed you on that one already.

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

iPhones can be tethered without Jail Breaking now. Have been able to for some time.

That depends on the carrier. On many carries, you can't tether the iPhone, even if you can tether other phones.

Yeah, because the 50,000 or so on the App Store last I checked is a terribly small number and indicates a horrible lack of choice

Yeah. Many of those apps are buggy and nearly unusable. Many others are just clones of each other. There are at best a few thousand apps even remotely worth using, and really only a few dozen that are useful to most people.

Given it's CPU and RAM footprint, and the size of the screen, not to mention the excellent message passing libraries, this isn't much of a hardship.

Spoken like someone who has never actually used multitasking. And Apple fanboys were giving us the same b.s. when MacOS couldn't multitask; and then, all of a sudden, when it could, it was the best thing since sliced bread.

All the legitimate problems with the iPhone (tied to AT&T, crappy networks in numerous major cities,

I have no problem with AT&T with my Nokia smartphone.

you just gotta spout the same (often incorrect, rarely serious) spurious, stupid complaints

And you get to decide that? I think not.

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

> Are you saying the 4th gen iphone will be able to read your thoughts?!?

Quite unlikely. If Apple had devised an interface to the brain they would use it to rewrite your thoughts, not read 'em.
THINK DIFFERENT :)

Re:Just a thought

[Kenshin]

I have never met a person that carries around spare phone batteries.
Spare batteries aren't the issue. The issue is what to do when your battery life drops down to less than a day. You currently have to pay Apple $90 to get it replaced, pay some sketchy booth at a mall to do it, or try doing surgery on it yourself.

Re:Just a thought

[HermMunster]

They weren't searching his house to recover the phone you know. They already had it back. The article had been online for weeks. Apple had been contacted even before that, and they claimed it wasn't theirs. They broke down his door and took his equipment likely without telling the judge he was a journalist. They also likely did it in an effort to make a point to anyone who might out their products before the official launch. I think most of us are smart enough to know this wasn't because they were seeking an investigation into some crime especially since the phone was returned already. Apple had been on the loosing end of a battle with a journalist in the recent past. This was simply their end run around the laws that protect journalist.

Re:Just a thought

[e3m4n]

apology? How about a court ordered Steve Jobs having to kiss his naked ass in the middle of Time Square NYC? I would settle for nothing less if it were me =)

Re:Just a thought

[gotpoetry]

No one is hating on Apple. At least I am not. I own a Nexus One, but I appreciate the iPhone for what it is. I just like the implementation of Android better. I've had a Smartphone since my 2002 Windows XDA, talk about a limited piece of crap...

Most people who own one, love their iPhones. All but two people I know who have them are very happy and those two mostly complain about things that are the fault of AT&T - dropped calls, poor 3G at times, not being able to tether, some MMS thing. Some of these things could be resolved by now, who knows.

My point is that, for most people, if your device does not have a feature, or does not perform a feature well, then most people work around it. They do not dwell on it. They even sometimes convince themselves that that feature is pointless.

They end up listening to the iPhone media player mostly because they do not like Pandora shutting down when you switch to another app.

They don't take their netbook on the trip to the campground because they can't tether it to their phone. They also are scared shitless of jail-breaking their super cool iPhone, so that is totally out for them.

They think things like Android's Locale isn't that great, because a process that runs in the background changing your settings such as ringer, wallpaper background and Wi-Fi depending on where you are physically located will drain your battery. "Oh, that will crash the phone and drain the battery, so what." They dismiss it.

It is human nature. It is just a way that people justify to themselves why they are perfectly happy with what they have.

For proof, reread your comment. You are doing the exact thing I am talking about.

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Early adopters always have to pay more. It's a shame the way they whine when the price drops for the main release.

Re:Just a thought

[Actually, I do RTFA]

-Apple is not stupid. They know about the Osborne Effect - that releasing too much hype and information on new products causes immediate losses as people who would have bought the current product sit and wait for the new product's release instead.

And they explicitly want people who would buy the current product to sit and wait for the new product's release instead. Because the current product is an Android phone. It's worth losing some sales now to keep people on the iPhone instead of switching to the Android.

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

speaking of which, what is this i-phone thing anyway?

I think it's from E.T. movie, "i phone home".

Re:Just a thought

[roman_mir]

Apples are selling for 4000-5000 dollars a pop? What kind of apples are those, 'magic' ones or did they already print the dollar into oblivion while I was outside for half an hour?

Re:Just a thought

[DJRumpy]

Pandora has already previewed a multi-tasking version of the app for OS 4.0. It will run in the background as well as supporting the standard audio controls just like the built in iPod player currently does.

With the advent of 4.0, most of the complaints, including multi-tasking have been addressed (although I'm sure there will be more created to fill the vacuum), although it appears the battery still can't be replaced, although the battery size is more inline with the newer capacities on phones like the HTC. Even with my old 3GS my batter lasts about 3 days on standby with 3 - 3.5 hours of 'ON' usage. I just don't see the non-replaceable battery as an issue.

Re:Just a thought

[Leebert]

I just don't see the non-replaceable battery as an issue.

Until the battery stops holding a charge.

Re:Just a thought

[kimvette]

I jailbroke mine, so:

- I can tether through ssh tunneling
- I can multitask on mine thanks to backgrounder, so I _CAN_ listen to Rhapsody while I read email
- with 256MB of RAM*, I have NEVER run out of RAM, even while running TomTom, having Rhapsody or iPod running, AND having a call come in. No problems whatsoever - well, except the task switching is cumbersome compared even to WinCE/Windows Mobile
- Battery life sucks on the 3G S, so I have a charger/sleeve plus eleventy-billion sync/charge cables
- The AT&T network works fine for me, but then, I live in Boston, so YMMV, batteries not included, etc.

Keep in mind Microsoft achieved preemptive, realtime multitasking, a restriction-free app install feature, ability to mount as a mass storage device, ability to use Microdrive, SD, or compactflash storage in a system that typically shipped with 32MB or 64MB of RAM. Jobs' claim that it (smooth multitasking) can't be done in 256MB of RAM is a lie. Microsoft, the king of bloat, achieved it with much less RAM. On my first PocketPC, I often ran a media player in the background playing MP3s while navigating using teletype. That was Compaq's first-generation iPaq with only 32MB of RAM, and App footprints AND running programs had to share RAM, so realistically only 16MB was available. My second iPaq was an HP iPaq (basically a Journada in design with the iPaq name slapped on it) running Windows Mobile 5.0 with about 300MB of flash ROM, 64MB of RAM dedicated to running programs rather than app storage, and ran very, very well even with third-party desktops and themes (a KDE-style theme) installed.

Re:Just a thought

[kimvette]

. I thought copy/paste would be a huge hindrance. I've had it for a while now and used it like... twice.

Ah, you must be Steve Jobs, or one of his buddies.

That you don't use something doesn't mean that millions of others don't. I use copy & paste very, very often. I understand the web sites you frequent are all HTML5 based, but the rest of us frequent web sites that utilize established technologies such as Flash and Silverlight, not alpha-test sites that use a standard that hasn't even left the draft stage yet.

Warning: Car analogy!
Please get out of the "stop using oil RIGHT NOW" mindset. Right now wind farms, solar farms, nuclear power, Mr. Fusion, and so forth are nonexistent thanks to treehuggers blocking them at every turn with their NIMBY and BANANA mindset. Right now we use OIL and it is the only practical power source until other technologies are developed.

OK now that the obligatory car analogy is out of the way, you need to recognize that your needs are different from mine, and mine are different from John Doe's, whose needs are different from Mary Jane's. We might all use different feature sets very heavily, while not even using the features the others in that little circle might rely on daily.

Common open source argument as an analogy:
Take Gimp vs. Photoshop for example: I love Gimp. It's a great app. However, at the office I also have Photoshop. Try as you might like to argue otherwise, Gimp CAN'T do everything Photoshop can - at least not without a LOT of extra work. Neither can Inkscape do everything Illustrator can do - not by a long shot. Where are the layer effects? Droplets? Macros? How can I edit text in place without losing every filter and other transformation I've applied to it? How can I emulate layer effects? Layer effects can be done in 2-3 clicks, whereas you can do as many as 30-60 steps in Gimp to achieve similar-but-not-identical effects, and if you decide to tweak that "effect" you have to go all the way undoing each step, and then re-do each step individually, whereas in the Adobe CS, it's two clicks to disable the effect, or 2-3 to completely change it. Now, you might use Gimp to resize an image and maybe draw a mustache on your ex girlfriend's photo before posting it to fark, but the reality is when you say it is a Photoshop replacement, you are ignoring the millions who rely on droplets, layer effects, nested layers, and the gadzillion features that only Photoshop delivers. Now, the Gimp folks may be promising those features Real Soon Now(tm) in the Next Major Version(tm) but the fact remains that they have been saying that for 5+ years now, so in the meantime, Gimp falls far short for millions of users, so the solution that might work for you 100% of the time works for me and others maybe 90% or 50% or whatever-percentage of the time.

Back to the functionality: that YOU do not use Copy & Paste regularly does not mean that I don't, and that others don't. In fact, I've installed a third-party menu to extend the context menu functionality, In fact, the lack of Copy & Paste is why I didn't buy the original iPhone, nor the 3G. I waited for the 3G S to come out, which is when Apple introduced the "groundbreaking" new Copy & paste feature.

I almost never use the calendar applet; should I say that it is a worthless feature because I don't bother with the calendar app? The problem with Calendar is it does not sync with google calendar, the GUI is dumbed down and limited, and is therefore cumbersome to use. So, because I don't use it, it's worthless for everyone, right? Right?

Flash? I need it and I want it. I've read there are cumbersome hacks to install the desktop plugin on a jailbroken iPhone, but that's a kludge and I really want to see an optimized-for-mobile-use flash plugin. It works WELL on mobile devices - I've seen the beta (or alpha?) of Flash on android devices and tried it, and it works very well. I want it on my iPhone, because HTML5 "just ain't there yet"

Re:Just a thought

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Ah, you must be Steve Jobs, or one of his buddies.

No. I am somebody who has had the product for a year and a half who has decided to share some details of that experience.

Why don't you list off a few products that you've used for a while that you really like. I'll pick the one that I haven't used before and write you a page-and-a-half essay on why you should hate it. Mainly I'll focus on what it doesn't do because, for some reason, that matters more than what it does do that is making you feel the purchase was worthwhile. Then, when you tell me why your experience with your reality didn't line up with what my theory said would happen, I'll just pretend I don't understand what a satisfied customer is and call you a fan-boy. How does that sound?

Re:Just a thought

[tknd]

It always was able to tether if you got away from a sociopath carrier. Unlock it to go to t-mobile and you can add a tethering app or more recently use the built in function.

That's a BS argument when a lot of people in the iphone camp claim "AT&T only because it makes life easier" then you go around and tell them "hey, if you unlock your phone and use T-Mobile, everything is good now." If you're going to argue for the "average" user then the average user doesn't jailbreak or move their iphone off AT&T.

I also still have not found a single Apple-hater that does not change their mind when I actually show them what I do with my phone that they CANT do with theirs.

All right, make a ringtone from an mp3 without itunes. Can you? On my android phone I install ring droid and I can make a ringtone on my phone right there without touching a computer. I can even have it be longer than 40 seconds if I'd like.

Re:Just a thought

[Dynedain]

No kidding. When Apple launched the pivot-stand iMac, they snookered Time magazine into being the front-page headline article. Basically an 8-page ad masquerading as "exclusive content".

And people think they need to intentionally leak prototypes?

Re:Just a thought

[Johnno74]

"Doesn't have multitasking" - I won't listen to Pandora while I read email.

Sorry but most smartphones did not do this either. A very VERY small number of people want this. and many that did have it on a WM5 phone hated it as the phone would crawl because of having apps in the background running consuming processing power. My older Nokia smartphones also suffered from multitasking apps. nothing like getting the battery sucked dry and the phone taking 12 seconds to answer a call because of some damn app in the background using up the system resources.

I've had a series of nokia symbian phones since 2002, first the 7650, then the 7610, now the 6110 and I use the multitasking abilities all the time. I've never had a problem with background apps causing slowdowns etc in real-world use.

"No replaceable battery" - I won't use it on the plane to watch that movie, that way I can make sure to call a cab when I land.

I have never met a person that carries around spare phone batteries. Plus anyone that even had a Palm Treo had the same problem. not easy to replace battery on smartphones has been a theme. Ever try to replace the battery in a Blackjack? the battery door self-welded shut every time you put it back on.

Hi there. I always carry a spare battery for my phone when I go on a trip. Always have done. Nice to meet you :)

"It can be tethered now" - I have AT&T and they don't allow tethering, but the AT&T 3G network is so crappy I won't even bother.

It always was able to tether if you got away from a sociopath carrier. Unlock it to go to t-mobile and you can add a tethering app or more recently use the built in function.

I have been a smartphone user for over a decade. I have used them all. and I currently have an iPhone because the apps that work with my workflow are on it, I don't have to reboot it weekly, and being a phone is first priority to it. I have never had a call I could not answer because the damned phone was busy... Unlike Windows Mobile phones. or have a phone freak on certain callers... like my Nokia E62 did.

there are some "neat-o" things I would like to do. Like have the phone report my GPS location every 15 seconds to my server at home. It would be cool to have the house see that I am on my way home and turn the heater on the hot-tub on when I am within a 15 minute distance, or make other decisions when it senses I am on a return path. but I can live without that, or simply grab the phone, fire up the crestron app and press the button myself.

I also still have not found a single Apple-hater that does not change their mind when I actually show them what I do with my phone that they CANT do with theirs. (lack of "app for that"(tm)(r) on their platform mostly)

Recently the biggest was sitting at a bar, talking to a client, filling out and sending them an invoice and then processing a credit card payment over the phone right there after they got the invoice. A colleague freaked and instead of doing his typical, frothing at the mouth apple-hate, started asking serious questions about it more.

Yeah, there are definitely some nice apps out there for the iphone. So much tho that I'm actually considering getting the next one... As long as there is an untethered jailbreak available for it. I have an itouch, and yes the apps are cool... but on my current phone my 3 favourite apps have no iphone alternative - that I'm aware of. I use:

- An answerphone app. If I don't answer in x rings, this app answers my phone, plays my greeting and records the callers message right on the phone. Then I'm not stung for call charges to later check my messages, as it is all on the phone.

- An e-book reader. I have a large collection of ebooks in plain text, html and pdf. On I use mobipocket reader to read these on my phone, and its a simple matter to load these onto my phone from my pc. Mobipocket isn't availalb

Re:Just a thought

[DJRumpy]

I've never had a phone battery die before I ended up replacing the phone, across a range of phones from Nokia, Motorola, and Apple, and even an old Panasonic (I think it was a Panny..been too many ears). In addition, you can replace the battery for about $5 bucks from Amazon, and all it takes it removing two screws to expose the innards. It's not overly difficult.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlkKQoUlOQg

Re:Just a thought

[Leebert]

You don't keep your phones long enough. My own iPhone is about a year and a half old, and already has a significantly reduced battery capacity. It sure won't last the 3-4 years I'd expect it to last (I spent 300 bucks on the thing, I'm sure not replacing it every 2 years, even 3 is pretty short.)

And you're insane if you're saying "Oh, it's no big deal to replace the battery in your iPhone."

It requires prying gently with a spudger (Sure, everyone has one of those), a freaking *soldering iron*... Right. That's a perfectly user serviceable battery. Maybe for someone like you or me, who are handy with a soldering iron. But not to the extent that it's plausible to say that the battery is "replaceable".

Re:Just a thought

[mjwx]

Or maybe with Apple currently being more successful that it's ever been, and the iphone being a hugely popular device right now, the temptation to learn or share privileged information is just well beyond anything that Apple has seen before?

Thats what they want you to think /grabs Pojut's tin foil hat.

Re:Just a thought

[pipedwho]

It was so much easier taking people off line 10 years ago. These days it's all laptops and UPSes and they're back up on a wireless link in under minute.

Don't worry, the helicopters will arrive shortly.

--
Black Van Guy

Re:Just a thought

[HermMunster]

The engineer that lost the iPhone at the bar wasn't fired, not as far as the public knows.

Re:Just a thought

[pipedwho]

Apple is like the Disneyland of the tech world. Just as Disney isn't simply an amusement park, Apple is not simply in the business of selling random hi-tech widgets. Both companies are all about the 'feel good' experience; it is how they differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

Apple's marketing staff would be unlikely to try something so risky as operate a bespoke marketing campaign that doesn't put them in a positive light. And a marketing strategy that takes the 'magic' out of their next product is as far from their modus operandi as it gets.

Re:Just a thought

[crossmr]

Sorry but most smartphones did not do this either.

My not so-smart phone does this. LG SH150A
if I'm in one part of the phone (text message, map, basically anywhere, except an MMS message) I can bring up an overlay menu to open up any other feature on the phone and toggle between them and even have several features open at once. Incredibly handy if I need to hit the built in Korean/English dictionary, or look something up on a subway map without saving the message and opening it up independently. I can also hit the memo section, or browse my content if I wanted to open a text file or something. If I am talking hands free, I can actually answer text messages at the same time. I have a touch and am considering an iphone to consolidate the devices, but I'm going to seriously miss those features.

I have never met a person that carries around spare phone batteries

try leaving home.
in Korea phones are sold with spare batteries and chargers pretty much standard. Because everyone watches TV on their phones here and does many other things it is quite common for most people to care a spare battery. In addition to that you'll often find coffee shops, etc that have free chargers plugged into the wall where you can just plug in your phone if need be. Phones use a standard adapter here with each phone having a mini adapter on it, usually hanging off the phone as a dongle. If you want to use that with your iphone you have to go out and buy your own adapter. they do sell spare batteries for the iphone though, they plug into the normal USB port and work like a charger.

Re:Just a thought

[crossmr]

An e-book reader. I have a large collection of ebooks in plain text, html and pdf. On I use mobipocket reader to read these on my phone, and its a simple matter to load these onto my phone from my pc. Mobipocket isn't availalbe on the iphone/itouch, and I haven't found any alternative that lets me load MY OWN content onto the device. Stanza used to do it, but apple forced them to update it so you could only get ebooks from itunes store, and not your own PC. That sucks the big one.

Stanza still does that.
I've got the latest version and the option is still there. It's still advertised on their website.

Re:Just a thought

[dudpixel]

because this way its "leaked" rather than "announced" and people still only get just enough info to pique their curiosity but not enough to really know about it. It maintains an air of secrecy and whispering behind closed doors etc. Everyone wants to know about stuff they think they shouldn't know about. Its part of human nature. this is just gossip doing its job. You will note the "rumour mill" somehow manages to start up right before every apple product is released.

Apple also have to "appear" to be against it, hence the police raids from the last case.

Whether it is a genuine mistake or clever marketing, who knows?

The fact is the marketing aspect is playing right into their lap at the moment.

Re:Just a thought

[Kitkoan]

why would they want to leak grainy photos and poorly lit videos by random people when they could easily get crisp clean front page covers of a dozen different magazines/website?

Because this way they can more or less get 'free' ideas from the public. How many different sites have people posting their 'wish list' for the new iPhone? With newer hardware means more software possibilities. But to come up with different ideas isn't easy, so one thing you can do is 'leak' a prototype that gets people talking about the device (free marketing), has everyone buzzing up this new upgraded model (free viral marketing, which is considered the best marketing since it doesn't cause as much jading in the public as normal marketing can do), then you have sites filled with people stating what they would love this new model will be able to do software wise (which you can sit there and cherry pick the ideas that as a company you feel are the most valuable). Its completely win-win

Re:Just a thought

[dudpixel]

speaking of which, what is this i-phone thing anyway?

it lets you walk around talking to people you cant see.

Re:Just a thought

[poolecl]

Unless Apple wants to save the crisp clean front page for it's current darling the iPad. Don't want to cannibalize the iPad (and current gen iPhone) sales, but need to start the hype machine for summer.

Re:Just a thought

[Johnno74]

Aha I read the site and you are right - but you can only transfer via a wireless network... It was loading content via USB that apple nuked.

Re:Just a thought

[Bert64]

AT&T don't offer it, and i believe tmobile runs on different frequency bands while other networks don't even use the same network standards... Hardly the fault of Apple.
Tethering works nicely in Europe and other places.

Re:Just a thought

[Spazztastic]

Pandora is one of the best online radio sites on the internet. If you like it, I strongly advise you upgrade to Pandora One for $32~ a year. It was well worth it in my opinion, and it supports the service.

Re:Just a thought

[Wovel]

These incidents have significantly cut into the interest that would be drummed up prior to the actual announcement, so I doubt it. Apple has a pretty specific (and wildly succesful) marketing plan that relies on secrecy up until the point they choose to reveal something in a highly anticipated event...

Re:Just a thought

[Wovel]

Intersting thought. Perhaps they have made some modifications to the design and are now leaking out models like the one that was stolen .. Or they have come up with a new strategy in light of what happened. They can't put the genie back in the bottle.

Re:Just a thought

[Wovel]

This one could be a leak because the "guy" (admitted thief) forced them to change their marketing strategy.

Re:Just a thought

[Pojut]

::hushed whisper::

I don't have much time. Listen. The iPhone controls minds. It makes people swoon over otherwise average hardware and limited capabilities. People love iPhones because of the apps, but the phone itself is a piece of shi- *NO CARRIER*

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it is intentional. It is all intentional! The reason for the legal nonsense the first time was because they got called out on it and didn't want to look like they were trying to get something for FREE. There is a reason this one ended up overseas. How many US Sheriffs and DA's are you going to find going over there to serve a search warrant??

Re:Just a thought

[Deefburger]

I do. I find I don't use my "smart" phone for anything but these functions: Voice calling Address Book Calendar Texting Time and Alarm Poker game to kill time. Very rare - Internet. Multi tasking would be nice, just for calling and checking Calendar and Contact while on call. For this I'm waiting for a Android phone from Sprint. All the other crap this phone CAN do, is mostly pointless.

Re:Just a thought

[Amouth]

oh i'm sure.. i was just pointing out that it is still an issue..

Re:Just a thought

[dayznfuz]

Frankly, these days all the phones are pretty much getting to be the same. iPhone, Android, WinMo. There's very little you can do on one that you can't do on another. Don't get me wrong, it might be harder or less pretty on one OS or another, but it usually can be done. I can pretty much find any "kewl" app equivalent on WinMo that people gush about on Apple or Android. And vice versa. Heck, even the UI's and ecosystems are converging. Apple's implementing quasi multitasking, cut and paste, and folders. WM7 is decidedly Applish in flavor and ecosystem. Android is in the middle between current WinMo and iPhone. The one area that Apple has an advantage is that for some reason, everyone and their mother thinks that Apple dominates the Smartphone market... When it reality, it doesn't. RIM is still way out in front. Frankly, Apple's not really that far ahead of WinMo, and every media site HATES WinMo. Everybody just thinks everyone else has an iPhone so they want one too. It's essentially a self fulfilling prophecy. Where WinMo and Android have the advantage, however, is user customization and variety. You're not locked into Apples ecosystem and how they think you should use your phone. I think that's a fairly big deal which is why android's been taking off so quickly.

Re:Just a thought

[wye43]

Don't update to 3.2, that update disabled tethering permanently.
I have an official iPhone 3GS, without jailbreak, and I use tethering. All I did was to download a custom internet setting file, completely legal.

LOL WUT!?

[the_one_wesp]

Why would anyone, after the last guys house having been searched and property seized, post more pictures of them having taken apart a, from Apple's perspective, STOLEN iPhone?

Re:LOL WUT!?

[zarzu]

because steve will have a hard time convincing obama to go to round two with vietnam?

Re:LOL WUT!?

[Pojut]

The fact that, FTFA, the pictures appeared on a Vietnamese website, I don't think the owners have anything to worry about.

Re:LOL WUT!?

[jeff4747]

Because Apple doesn't have a strong relationship with the Vietnamese police.

Re:LOL WUT!?

[Anonymous Coward]

obama is a blackberry addict, thesteve has no pull with him. yet.

Re:LOL WUT!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Apple have an extradition agreement with Vietnam?

Re:LOL WUT!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great plot for a film with a cameo by Matt Damon, who can't remember where he put his phone - or his name...

punctuation

[Threni]

> This doesn't seem like the most efficient distribution mechanism Steve

I always had my doubts about the efficiency of Steve as a distribution mechanism.

Re:punctuation

[Custard Horse]

It certainly is a good way to reduce overheads.

(1) "If you find this phone, send Apple $300"

(2) ...

(3) Profit

Re:punctuation

[Thanshin]

This doesn't seem like the most efficient distribution mechanism Steve

I always had my doubts about the efficiency of Steve as a distribution mechanism.

You got it wrong.

He was expressing his doubts about the efficiency of the distribution to Mechanism Steve; the living AI that was embedded in a robot soldier, to preside Apple.

Re:punctuation

[Bing Tsher E]

I always had my doubts about the efficiency of Steve as a distribution mechanism.

Steve was one heck of a successful coke dealer in his time....

Re:punctuation

[Anonymous Coward]

"...mechanism, Steve. Wonder if..."
For a second, It looked like Stevie Wonder was the responsible for looking over the prototypes ;-P

Lost? You keep using that word.

[Rogerborg]

I do not think it means what you think it means.

Apple hardware is being found, in the same way you can find a wallet, if the owner doesn't notice your hand in their pocket.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[kannibal_klown]

It's hard to do considering these phone are pseudo camouflaged, from my understanding at first glance it looks like an ordinary iPhone.

It would be like "Finding" a wallet in someone's pocket with something specific inside (like a 2-dollar bill or a Discover credit card). Sure if you check enough wallets I'm sure you'll find them but it would be noticed fairly quickly.

I imagine the big options are:

- Intentional leaks by Apple. The most likely in me eyes since it's now twice.

- *Very* careless employees, perhaps bragging that they have the new 4g (perhaps while intoxicated). Then leaving them behind, or not noticing that the phone disappeared 2 minutes after they bragged about it.

- An inside job, or some otherwise corporate espionage thing. I don't see what they would gain here other than seeing what Apple's internals look like a few weeks early, which wouldn't help them rush a product to market ahead of Apple.

- Some other sort of coordinated effort with geeks trying to find out which Apple employee might have the phone. Find out where the phones are developed, determine which employees work in fields with access to the iPhones, chat up those 1-2 dozen employees until you find one with the phone.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[ifrag]

*Very* careless employees, perhaps bragging that they have the new 4g (perhaps while intoxicated). Then leaving them behind, or not noticing that the phone disappeared 2 minutes after they bragged about it.

I suppose it's possible, but I have a hard time believing this personally. Maybe not everyone is like this, but regardless of what mental state I'm in, I always am very careful about checking what exactly is in my pockets frequently. Even small weight differences will set off internal alarms when items which ought to be in the pockets are not there. I suppose I'm just OCD about it, but I will not leave a location without double checking that all items on my person are where they belong.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[dintech]

ZOMG! There's no way I would buy this phone considering how easy it is to lose. They really need to work on that. /joke

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[oji-sama]

- An inside job, or some otherwise corporate espionage thing. I don't see what they would gain here other than seeing what Apple's internals look like a few weeks early, which wouldn't help them rush a product to market ahead of Apple.

I would think that corporate espionage people would not rely on random websites on opening and distributing pictures about the internals

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not the only one. I frequently get a mental alarm that I may have left my phone at work when I notice that it isn't weighing down my left pocket as much as normal. This is despite the fact that it is right next to me playing music in my car, or my friend is playing tower defense on it or something.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

- An inside job, or some otherwise corporate espionage thing. I don't see what they would gain here other than seeing what Apple's internals look like a few weeks early, which wouldn't help them rush a product to market ahead of Apple.

if it was corporate espionage, it'd be locked in a lab somewhere, being dissected by an electron microscope, not on a vietnamese blog.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[ArsenneLupin]

- Some other sort of coordinated effort with geeks trying to find out which Apple employee might have the phone. Find out where the phones are developed, determine which employees work in fields with access to the iPhones, chat up those 1-2 dozen employees until you find one with the phone.

Lesson learned: never bring a hot iPhone to a sex-date.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[Anonymous Coward]

if it was corporate espionage, it'd be locked in a lab somewhere, being dissected by an electron microscope, not on a vietnamese blog.

Get real. Almost all of Apple's product are using standard off the shelf components. How do you think strip down site are able to list costs to build so quickly?

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[jeff4747]

You are assuming that both events arise from the same source.

What it appears to me is:
1) First leak - careless, drunk employee. The timing on that incident is all wrong for a marketing campaign. Too far from the release date, too close to other releases and kills their current iPhone sales for way too long.

2) Second leak - employee who thought he or she could make a quick $4k, but will now be in deep trouble because the guy who bought it didn't keep his mouth shut.

Could it be intentional? Probably not. The way they're doing it is way to ham-fisted for an intentional leak.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[drinkypoo]

I would think that corporate espionage people would not rely on random websites on opening and distributing pictures about the internals

Ever heard of misdirection? Guess not. Hey, what's that over there?

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[oji-sama]

Ever heard of misdirection? Guess not. Hey, what's that over there?

Right. So instead of stealing one phone they can open and disassemble totally, they steal several and put those on sale, because that's safer for them? Quite a misdirection.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[Bing Tsher E]

The day when Apple produced innovative unique products is in the past. They haven't reached the level of Dell yet, but they most repackage COTS hardware now. The Apple brand is now close to their most valuable asset.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[dunezone]

Intentional leaks by Apple. The most likely in me eyes since it's now twice.

If these are intentional leaks then a police raid on a reporters home is an improper use public funded resources.

We are not seeing leaks, we are seeing both incompetence on Apples part and theft by those who report it.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[MindStalker]

What especially bothers me is when I purposefully don't have my keys for some reason. It will bother me the entire day as I keep rediscovering I don't have my keys. :(

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[tlhIngan]

- An inside job, or some otherwise corporate espionage thing. I don't see what they would gain here other than seeing what Apple's internals look like a few weeks early, which wouldn't help them rush a product to market ahead of Apple.

I would think that corporate espionage people would not rely on random websites on opening and distributing pictures about the internals

Not corporate espionage by competitors, but by journalists.

Face it - Gizmodo pretty much scooped up a pile of money off their iPhone 4G reveal - 2 million+ hits on that article alone, plus all the milking (Giz ran daily "iPhone 4G Saga" summary articles for a few weeks afterwards to milk more hits). It happened with ThinkSecret paying people to violate their NDAs on purpose to get the scoop on rumors. It happened with Gizmodo getting a whole pile of hits from everywhere and coverage in other media outlets.

Exclusives sell. Giz had an excluslve peek at the new iPhone, and you can be sure they made off like bandits because of it. The site making a pile off advertising, and practically the big guys at Giz getting far more name recognition.

Competitors to Apple like Nokia, RIM, HTC, etc. Not a chance to scoop Apple by seeing what's going to be released in a few months. But corporate espionage to scoop advertising bucks and site hits for money, that's gold.

The whole SWAT thing is different - journalist shield laws do not cover illegal (or potentially illegal) actions done by journalists - i.e., you can't use them as a get-out-of-jail-free card. They only protect a journalist who is keeping their source anonymous for whatever reason, not keeping the journalist from getting away with anything from a speeding ticket to murder.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[geekoid]

Let see.
Person find phone on bar. the owner no where around.
Trie to contact the owner. No luck
Calls Apple, Apple insists it isn't theirs.
Sells it to Gizmnodo.
Gizmodo contacts Apple, Apple says it isn't theirs.
Gizmodo takes it apart.
Apple now says it is theirs.
Gizmodo gives it to them
Gizmodo gets raided by the police.

Yeah, it's like finding a wallet, trying to find it's owner then when people say ti isn't there you decided to keep the money. Then you get thrown in jail.

The only people at fault for anything is Apple.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[geekoid]

Accidents happen.

The odds of winning the lottery are pretty damn slim, but sometimes there are multiple winners. No conspiracy needed.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[geekoid]

electron microscope? dude it's not an alien device.

They would look at it's component pieces and lay out. Get the specs from the manufacture for each piece. Use a software tool to create a virtual circuit board through simple reverse engineering.

Electron microscope. sheesh. Have you even used one?

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[geekoid]

no, the iPhone was pretty innovative, and was the iPod. So it the Air.

However, long gone are the days when you wired up a prototype and then changed thing to get it to behave the same way with fewer chips.

That is a good thing.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to do considering these phone are pseudo camouflaged, from my understanding at first glance it looks like an ordinary iPhone.

Um... at "first glance"? Tell me, would you be able to tell the difference between the three current iPhones at "first glance"? Not after studying photos of them for a few minutes, mind, I mean when just seeing someone use one in public for a couple seconds.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[ColdWetDog]

The day when Apple produced innovative unique products is in the past. They haven't reached the level of Dell yet, but they most repackage COTS hardware now. The Apple brand is now close to their most valuable asset.

Please tell me that you don't believe that Apple products were ever made with unique, pixie dust laden components assembled by flawless virgins in a secret cave in the mysterious Far Eastern city nestled in a pastoral cloudscape.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[Duradin]

Yeah, 'cause all corporations have perfect and instant total information awareness throughout all levels of employees and branches of their offices so it's totally like dealing directly with a person who lost a wallet (assuming you are asking the right person in the first place).

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[raddan]

Why is Apple's inability to get their shit in order our problem? If I make an honest effort to return someone's property, and that honest effort results in me being raided by the police, I am minimally owed an apology.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

But that wasn't the case here.

If he wanted to put in an honest effort to return property, he'd have driven to Cupertino or you know, given the phone to the barkeep(Or the cops!).

Instead, he asked a friend who asked around where he could shop this thing around.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[Duradin]

The thing is, even it it wasn't Apple's property it still wasn't YOUR property to sell. So your brief period of attempted honesty won't really help when you go and immediately sell it to someone else for 5k.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Why not an employee from a non-Apple company, such as one of the many companies that actually make the iPhone?

Apple doesn't need to leak stuff in this way. If they did leak it, then why get the law involved? That would be a pointless risk for them.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[Rakishi]

Except the ipad cpu which was manufactured by apple and is claimed to also be in the new iphone.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Lets be realistic here. If you're smart enough to know that you're looking at a prototype iPhone, you're smart enough to know that ringing Apple's consumer phone line is not going to get you anywhere and that you should at least call the bar. Of course, you may also be smart enough to only call Apple anyway, so that it looks as if you tried to return the phone, even if you never intended to.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

You're forgetting about the software.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[drinkypoo]

Right. So instead of stealing one phone they can open and disassemble totally, they steal several and put those on sale, because that's safer for them? Quite a misdirection.

Who said instead of? I meant to propose that they did it before.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[Rogerborg]

Sure, when I find things, and then sell them on, I'm always scrupulously honest about the story behind the finding.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

Apple hardware is being found, in the same way you can find a wallet, if the owner doesn't notice your hand in their pocket.

It's actually irrelevant whether the guy that ended up with the phone found it honestly or not. His subsequent actions amount to theft.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[repressitol]

Well, according to http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/iphone-finder/

"The person who found and sold an Apple iPhone prototype says he regrets not doing more to return the device to its owner, according to a statement provided by his attorney Thursday in response to queries from Wired.com."

"A friend of Hogan’s then offered to call Apple Care on Hogan’s behalf, according to Hogan’s lawyer. That apparently was the extent of Hogan’s efforts to return the phone."

And from http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/gizmodo_prototype_iphone

"California’s penal code, section 485: One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft."

So the phone was stolen and sold...I'm not clear how the theft of the phone was "Apple's fault"?

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[oji-sama]

In your theory they first get a phone without getting caught and then release the phone to people who will make it a media event. Doesn't this increase the pressure (and chances, as now it's known where the phone is) to find out how and where the phone disappeared in the first place... Wouldn't it be safer for them to either keep the phone or destroy it?

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing how you can be modded informative on Slashdot by simply making stuff up.

Gizmodo's story was:

Person finds phone which had facebook information on it.
Person for some reason don't use any of the information on the phone to contact the owner or leave it at the bar, and instead takes it home with him and waits for it to be remotely wiped.
Person might have called Apple tech support, who of course would have no knowledge of a prototype yet to be released product.
Person sells it to Gizmodo for $5000
Gizmodo tears it apart and posts the story before contacting Apple.
Gizmodo waits for Apple to contact them before offering to give it back.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[Anonymous Coward]

ZOMG! There's no way I would buy this phone considering how easy it is to lose. They really need to work on that. /joke

They already did - maybe you should consider this version instead.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[repressitol]

Marked troll for posting facts with the sources? Nice job moderators.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[fredmosby]

- Intentional leaks by Apple. The most likely in me eyes since it's now twice.

I think that's very unlikely. Why would Apple leak prototypes when they could just leak pictures and feature lists. Leaking pictures and stats would allow them to showcase the features they want people to know about without as much risk of giving competitors an advantage. It also lets respected news organizations be the first to report on the features, rather than some shady blog.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[repressitol]

Yes, and you get modded troll for posting the link to the Wired article saying as much.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[brkello]

You crack me up. If this was the RIAA doing this you would be flipping out. But because it is beloved Apple, suddenly it is ok because corporations don't have "instant total information awareness". Call evil out when it is evil, even when you like their products.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[Duradin]

There's absolutely no difference between someone in your organization not knowing a specific piece of the company's property has actually been lost and whatever nefarious deeds, for example taking all of a poor old grandmother's savings because little Johnny downloaded one song, you want to lambast the RIAA for. Nope. None at all. One totally isn't not knowing your inventory is missing while the other is actively [per|pro]secuting someone. Nope. Totally the same thing.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[BitZtream]

Thats also not what you're supposed to do.

One of your early steps is to notify the police, then Apple has a real hard time doing anything to you.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[pipedwho]

The manufacturer of the dedicated Apple embedded 'system on a chip' processor is unlikely to give you a data sheet.

But, you're right, it's easier to design a functionally equivalent device from scratch rather than waste time trying to work out exactly how this one worked with an electron microscope.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

if the A4 CPU used on the iPad and iPhone G4 is of the shelf, then i challenge you to buy one and put a home made system togheter with it.

do it and i'll eat my words.

the cost to build is not as much "calculated" as is "estimated". they probably rely on insider information to estimate the cost of custom components, pretty much like reportes rely on these kind of sources to do their job.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only people at fault for anything is Apple."

No.

"Sells it to Gizmnodo."

They should have handed it in to the police, as they were required to do so by law.

They broke the law, they are being prosecuted, it's not a hard concept.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[drinkypoo]

In your theory they first get a phone without getting caught and then release the phone to people who will make it a media event

You, and the idiot who moderated my above comment, are not paying attention. I mean that they dissect the phone, then they give the phone to people who will make it a media event. That person gets in trouble, not the anonymous provider of the phone. Are you a fucking moron? They have plots more complicated than this in Star Wars movies.

Re:Lost? You keep using that word.

[oji-sama]

In your theory they first get a phone without getting caught and then release the phone to people who will make it a media event

You, and the idiot who moderated my above comment, are not paying attention. I mean that they dissect the phone, then they give the phone to people who will make it a media event. That person gets in trouble, not the anonymous provider of the phone. Are you a fucking moron? They have plots more complicated than this in Star Wars movies.

I'm sorry, but please read your own signature. The problem I see with your theory is that while the person who will make it a media event will indeed get in trouble, Apple will still be interested in the events that lead to that person getting the phone. And now they can trace the events from two directions instead of just starting from the person who lost (or something) the phone. (Who could have said [for example] that s/he flushed it by accident and no-one could prove otherwise ^.^)

And while your comment a few levels above isn't exactly a troll, your style of expressing your views is rather strong.

They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Anonymous Coward]

What ever happened to finders keepers??

If Apple is gonna keep losing their 4G iPhones, I seriously think law enforcement needs to stop helping them. Apple is careless and that's the price they pay.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Anonymous Coward]

What ever happened to finders keepers??

If Apple is gonna keep losing their 4G iPhones, I seriously think law enforcement needs to stop helping them. Apple is careless and that's the price they pay.

Finding something that isn't yours is the same as stealing. Proper protocol in such matters is to turn the something in to the local authorities and wait out the claiming period. After such period if the original owner does not file a claim the something is then transferred to your possession.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Anonymous Coward]

What ever happened to finders keepers??

So... you're sincerely wondering what happened to that cherished legal doctrine of "finders, keepers", established so clearly in the watershed cases on the schoolyard during recess when we were eight?

I have some bad news. Also, about what happens to your mother's back when you step on a crack and about cootie shots.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Darth Sdlavrot]

What ever happened to finders keepers??

If Apple is gonna keep losing their 4G iPhones, I seriously think law enforcement needs to stop helping them. Apple is careless and that's the price they pay.

Kindergarden playground rules don't apply in the Real World. IANAL, but I do know that from a legal standpoint I can "store" my property anywhere I want and it doesn't cease being mine just because you can pick it up and carry it off.

Oh look, I found your Porsche parked on the street. I'll just take it home with me. Finders keepers. I don't think so.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Pojut]

What ever happened to finders keepers??

If we went that route, it would also be losers weepers...and you don't want Steve crying. It would likely be a substance similar to the acid blood inside a Xenomorph.

We don't need that kind of bullhonkity.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[tomhudson]

Oh look, I found your Porsche parked on the street. I'll just take it home with me. Finders keepers. I don't think so.

No, but park it in my parking space, don't remove it after I have you served with a notice to either do so or that I will go to court and get title of it, and guess what - I *can* go to court and get title transferred.

And if you park your Porsche on the street without license plates, the city will seize it. If you never registered or plated it, you'll have fun getting it back.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[bytethese]

Actually, not true.

IANAL either, but have you ever heard of abandonment doctrine? For example, police cannot go through your trash (in the US) if it's on your property, but when you put it out to be collected, it's on public property (sidewalk) and is considered abandoned. So you can't just store any old property anywhere you wish. Cars? That's another story, I'm referring more to small personal possessions.

Similarly this could apply to things you leave about, however, ethics dictate that a person reasonably try to contact the original owner of such property (I would and have) to return said item. If owner not found nor seeking their property to be returned, enjoy the item.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[whisper_jeff]

I "found" your wallet. It happened to be in your pocket, at the time, but I "found" it. So I'll keep it. Thanks.

Oh. You actually think these phones are being lost and then found? Interesting.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[nomadic]

No, but park it in my parking space, don't remove it after I have you served with a notice to either do so or that I will go to court and get title of it, and guess what - I *can* go to court and get title transferred.

Uhhhh...what?? What law is this? IAAL and I've never heard of this legal maneuver.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but park it in my parking space, don't remove it after I have you served with a notice to either do so or that I will go to court and get title of it, and guess what - I *can* go to court and get title transferred.

Let me guess. You bought your legal degree online for 5 bucks?

You were done. I've had better legal advice from fortune cookies.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[intheshelter]

You can get it towed maybe, but you sure as hell can't get the title transferred to you! What kind of crap are you making up

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[aesiamun]

oh shit, thanks! *Circle Circle Dot Dot*

There, I'm protected.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Panaflex]

Property can be seized during a drug raid... in which case it's likely auctioned. Also, if your car is towed, it can have a lien put on it by the towing/storage company in some jurisdictions. But that would take some time... a long time.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[natehoy]

Are you sure you're not BadAnalogyGuy under a new nickname?

Yes, what you say is absolutely true. So as soon as we can prove that the people who "lost" their phones broke into the finder's homes and placed them on their kitchen tables, and the finder contacted the police, turned in the phone, waited an appropriate period for it to be declared "abandoned property", and asked the police to give it back, your analogy will be perfectly relevant. Based on the news coverage of the "finds", it sounds more like (at least in the first case) the phone was taken when there was every indication that the rightful owner would be back in a matter of minutes to reclaim it.

Until then, discovering that someone has left something behind on a bar in a public place does not mean it's your property if you find it. That goes double if it's sitting on top of a jacket and the owner has just popped off to the john for a minute. Even salvage law requires proof of abandonment (as in your example above), and with anything of any value (which smartphones certainly are) it requires a process where the original owner is identified and agrees to give up rights to the item, or is unable to be found after a reasonable search and declared "abandoned property" and therefore the property of the person who found it.

The first phone was not "abandoned property". It was either intentionally leaked with a fabricated backstory, or it was stolen.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[drinkypoo]

No, but park it in my parking space, don't remove it after I have you served with a notice to either do so or that I will go to court and get title of it, and guess what - I *can* go to court and get title transferred.

Uh, "your parking space"? What does that mean? You mean, in your driveway? I don't know what your state is like, but in California it takes two years to acquire a car that was abandoned on your property, then you can execute a lien sale. You can attempt to recover storage costs in civil court.

And if you park your Porsche on the street without license plates, the city will seize it. If you never registered or plated it, you'll have fun getting it back.

Well, again in California, you can't buy a car without titling it. You can get it psuedo-registered as an off-road-only vehicle, which AFAIK is a single-event, lifetime thing. Nobody has to pay any more fees until it's transferred or registered for street use. And you can't own a car without titling it, either. In California, failure to register is just a fine. They'll take your car for unpaid fines, maybe, but first they'll issue a warrant and drag you into court for FTP ("failure to pay"). But you don't own a vehicle unless you title it. And of course, you're not permitted to park an off-road vehicle on the road, because that puts the lie to it being an off-road vehicle. Meanwhile, you can have a car with no plates, but with a temporary registration, for example while customized plates arrive.

Or in short, don't try to make car analogies, you are bad at it.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[evilbessie]

If I had to guess, IANAL, but some type of trespass possibly, can't see much else being of use here though.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[wvmarle]

IIRC in The Netherlands the rule is that if you find say a wallet (or something that is obviously lost and not abandoned) you are to hand it in to the police, or just give it back to the owner if you happen to know them. If no-one claims the lost object after something like three years it's indeed for the finder - people who have lost something valuable of course are expected to report this to police. Not handing such object to the police is theft. I think in most countries it works roughly like that, to me it's sensible.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Anonymous Coward]

you must really like the web 2.0 icons that are all over the gui of every apple product. so now aren't they!

extreme expressions of consumerism are one thing, but the way you get jobs' dick right into your mouth is deeply impressive!

thanks whisper jeff - same time tomorrow, you repulsive little apple troll...?

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Zerth]

It's called a lien sale. You have to fill out some forms, offer to return it to the owner for a fee, and then offer it for public auction. If the owner doesn't want it and nobody bids on it at the auction, you get the right to retitle it.

This doesn't apply to junked or salvage vehicles, that's usually easier, and may vary depending on your region. Not a lawyer, yadda yadda.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[tomhudson]

if it's been abandoned/unclaimed for 30 days or more, it usually takes a couple of weeks. Not "... a long time". Look up "abandoned vehicle lien sale"

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Anonymous Coward]

Chewbaka Defense... well known by some lawyers....

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[couchslug]

You can also have the vehicle towed by a towing service, who charge for tow and storage.

If the owner doesn't redeem it, it goes to a magistrate auction for what is owed plus whatever bidders wish to bid (normally not above monies owed). YMMV, but "abandoned" property law can be looked up at county court houses where auction and tax auction notices are posted.

Wanna buy cheap land, homes, etc? Haunt these auctions and be ready to act. :)

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Panaflex]

You're correct - it really depends on how long someone lets it sit there, where it's at, and the jurisdiction.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[tomhudson]

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/faq/faqliensale.htm
http://legisweb.state.wy.us/statutes/statutes.aspx?file=titles/Title31/T31CH13.htm
http://www.iowadot.gov/mvd/ovs/abandoned.htm#What%20are%20the%20steps%20for%20disposal%20of%20an%20abandoned%20vehicle%20on%20private%20property

http://www.state.nj.us/mvcbiz/Abandoned/Abandoned.htm

Sample (from the last link):

A vehicle is considered abandoned if it has been in the same public location for at least three consecutive days. Most often, it will be damaged or missing critical components, such as the engine, wheels, tires or plates.

You may be able identify a vehicle as abandoned if:

• It has been in the same location for at least three consecutive days
• Is missing the engine, wheels, tires or any other part of the vehicle that make it inoperable
• Has a broken window or windshield that limits visibility
• Has one or more flat tires
• Does not have valid license plates
• Is not registered
• Note: This doesn't include any vehicle kept within a building when it is not in use

How to report an abandoned vehicle
To report an abandoned vehicle, call your local police department with the location and description of the vehicle.

How to obtain to title an abandoned vehicle
If you want to claim ownership and title an abandoned vehicle, you must request an application packet from the Special Title Section at an MVC Agency. You must state whether the vehicle was found on public or private property.

In order to operate an abandoned vehicle on New Jersey roads, it must first pass a state inspection process.

If you own a repair facility and a vehicle was abandoned on your property, you may have it removed and stored or you may sell it at a public or private sale.

So, leave it on someone's property for 3 days without their okay, and they can get title to it.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[DrgnDancer]

It's the same way in most states in the US to my knowledge. People are just making crazy crap up here. I mean, don't get me wrong. If you lose your wallet, and someone picks it up and takes the cash out, it's highly unlikely that anything will ever come of the matter. If someone picks it up and starts using the credit cards... that's a different matter. If someone picks it up, takes pictures of the credit cards puts them on a million hit a day blog, with special attention being called to the name, CC number, and expiration date.... I think they're likely to be in very serious trouble.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[tomhudson]

You can get it towed maybe, but you sure as hell can't get the title transferred to you! What kind of crap are you making up

Read it and weep. I've provided links to the procedure in various states. The delay can be anywhere from 3 days to 45 days (Hew Jersey is 3 days).

How to obtain to title an abandoned vehicle

If you want to claim ownership and title an abandoned vehicle, you must request an application packet from the Special Title Section at an MVC Agency. You must state whether the vehicle was found on public or private property.

Now fess up that you're wrong, that you can't even do a simple search on the internet, and hand in what's left of your geek cred.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[DrgnDancer]

...

So, leave it on someone's property for 3 days without their okay, and they can get title to it.

...
If they "request [and submit] an application packet from the Special Title Section at an MVC Agency". I'd imagine that the MVC Agency doesn't just rubber stamp these things while you sit in the office. I bet they do things like, I dunno, check to see if the vehicle has been reported stolen? Do a quick title search? I'm pretty sure they don't just hand the car over to the property owner that same afternoon. But hey, believe what you want. It's still completely different than leaving your cell phone in a bar, regardless.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I live if you report your car stolen the cops come to your house and demand the keys, if you can't produce them then you're charged as an accessory.

Then why If the Apple employee had to admit to leaving the phone in public and then had to declare it stolen why was Apple not charged as an accessory? because Apple is a huge corporation and the USA is a Fascist state. Tell me one story where the cops broke down someones door because you said they had your phone? The cops would have laughed their fool heads off and you would have left with nothing.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[mr_matticus]

Actually, not true.

IANAL either, but have you ever heard of abandonment doctrine?

No, actually it is true. Abandonment requires both placement and intent to abandon. Your trash cans aren't abandoned because you leave them in the street because you have no intent to rid yourself of them. Your trash is, because protocol dictates that you place trash to be collected in appropriate containers and leave them in the street near collection day.

If you leave property in a public place, it's not assumed to be abandoned by that fact alone. It's the first fact you can use to build such a presumption, but far from the last required.

Similarly this could apply to things you leave about, however, ethics dictate that a person reasonably try to contact the original owner of such property (I would and have) to return said item.

Not just ethics, but the law of every state and nation of Western legal traditions (as well as most others). You can contact them directly if you have means to do so, or you can do it constructively by turning over the item to the police or designated state agency.

If owner not found nor seeking their property to be returned, enjoy the item.

No. If the owner is not found, after the police assume control of the item, and after the necessary period of time elapses, and if your state or country allows it, you can ask for it to be tendered to you.

I'm aware of nowhere in the world where you can just sit on an item and have it become yours, except for general exemptions in some places for found property where the owner is not known, cannot be found, AND the value is less than a minimal threshold of $20-50. This is because items of little-to-no value are more easily replaced than found by their owners, the state has little use expending more resources than it's worth to return, and agencies and prosecutors have better things to do than handle civil or criminal cases against people who pick spare change up off the sidewalk. But you better be damn sure what you pick up is close to worthless.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashlaw

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[nomadic]

That's not what the OP was describing though. A lien does not give anyone full right to a piece of property, but rather allows them to prevent the transfer of that property to someone else. Even if you were legally able in that jurisdiction to tow the car and then place a lien on the car for the towing charge, that is not going to get you the title to the car.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[tomhudson]

Lien sale of vehicle valued at less than $4k in California - total time is less than 2 months. http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/brochures/howto/htvr7.htm

Over $4k - 90 to 120 days http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/brochures/howto/htvr8.htm

You get title, and you can plate it just like any other vehicle after it's inspected.

These lien sales include where you have not been paid for storing the vehicle, so all you have to do to initiate the process is send the owner a demand for parking fees of $x per day.

So, park your car in my spot - I send you the notice to either remove it immediately or start paying $50/day storage. You ignore it, I apply for a lien sale, send out the notices as required, you either pay all amounts due at that point or it goes to auction. If nobody else bids, I get it. I plate it. I have it inspected. I drive it. Total time is 2 to 4 months total, not 2 years, and I can drive it on the street.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[tomhudson]

If the vehicle hasn't been reported stolen, yes, they'll do a title search - and give you the results, so you can mail the current owner a notice that you have a lien on it and that you're going to claim title to it unless they cough up some money.

So yes, it's basically rubber-stamping stuff to make sure it's all legal.

And why are you talking about phones in bars - the iPhone in question was not "found in a bar." Oh, right - you didn't read the article.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[nomadic]

Right, exactly, there's no way you can get title transferred simply by giving "notice."

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Begemot]

iAnal? Is it another new product from Apple?

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even read what zerth posted? After all that crap, you get the right to retitle the car.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[jhjessup]

No, but park it in my parking space, don't remove it after I have you served with a notice to either do so or that I will go to court and get title of it, and guess what - I *can* go to court and get title transferred.

Uhhhh...what?? What law is this? IAAL and I've never heard of this legal maneuver.

He's talking about adverse possession.

It wouldn't directly apply here (it's not real estate, so he'd have to look at the more general doctrine of laches), but if you can't spot it, you should brush up on your property law. IANAL, but I've got a J.D.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[nate_in_ME]

In some cases, yes, it would... (Courtesy of http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/bills_123rd/chappdfs/PUBLIC150.pdf)

State that if the owner of the vehicle or lienholder has not properly retrieved it and paid all reasonable charges for its towing, storage and repair within 7 days from the publication, ownership of the vehicle passes to the owner of the premises where the vehicle is located

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[BitZtream]

Well, he won't get the title, it will be sold at auction after the car runs up a large storage bill at the towing companies storage facility when its unclaimed.

The owner can either claim it and pay the storage fees then sue the guy who had it towed, or the owner can leave it until the storage company sells it to cover their fees.

Its rather common, but the guy who called it in doesn't get to keep the car, it goes to auctions and there is a certain amount of legal paperwork that has to be filed first so the police are made aware of the car and whats happening with it.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[SydShamino]

Legal at least in California, thanks to 30 seconds on Google:

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060720210018AAWfCCp

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/vr/liensale.htm

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[hollywoodb]

No, but park it in my parking space, don't remove it after I have you served with a notice to either do so or that I will go to court and get title of it, and guess what - I *can* go to court and get title transferred. Uhhhh...what?? What law is this? IAAL and I've never heard of this legal maneuver.

I believe what is being referred to (and misinterpreted) are abandoned vehicle laws. Some states have abandoned vehicle laws where a property owner can file a title claim on vehicles that are determined to be abandoned. Different states have different rules for what qualifies as "abandoned". For example, Minnesota Statute 168B.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[geekoid]

Another stupid and vastly incorrect anology.

However, lets try to force your moronin analogy into what happend, shall we?

a Porche is found sitting on a sidewalk.
Someone looks in the car and trie to find the owner, no luck.
Then they look in the glove box and call yuo telling you they ahve your car.
You then deny that it's yours.
It gets hauled off and sold at auction.
The buyer from the auction contacts you and offers to GIVE YOU THE CAR back without repaying them for what ever the paid at auction.

You STILL deny it's your.
I take it apart to show the world.
You then call my up and go 'yeah, it's my Porsche."
I GIVE IT TO YOU without asking for any money.
You then have the cops break into my house and take all my tools.

Apple is in the wrong.

However, if you where to find a normal phone, couldn't find the owners so you decided to take it apart, no one would give a rats ass.

I'm pretty sure the PR people at Apple are tearing there hair out over how management handled that.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[geekoid]

http://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-Title-to-an-Abandoned-Vehicle

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Dragonslicer]

A vehicle is considered abandoned if it has been in the same public location for at least three consecutive days.

So, leave it on someone's property for 3 days without their okay, and they can get title to it.

Those two statements do not agree with each other.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[jittles]

If the owner doesn't want it and nobody bids on it at the auction, you get the right to retitle it.

In California the owner of a tow yard is allowed to transfer a certain number of cars to immediate relatives per year w/o an auction. My roommate in college was the son of a tow yard operator. The best was when he got that car with hydraulics installed...

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Darth Sdlavrot]

Offhand I'd say your attempt to twist my example of why "finders keepers" doesn't work in the Real World into a failed analogy of the Apple/iPhone4G situation is itself an epic failure.

I'm sure you'll tell us all how your really feel about Apple though. ;-)

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Fanboys_Suck_Dick]

How about an analogy about what really happened?

a Porche is found sitting in a parking lot.
Someone looks in the car and tries to find the owner, no luck.
The person decides not to tell the parking lot attendent about his discovery
The person decides not to tell the police about his discovery
The person takes the Porche off the lot and parks it in his garage at home
The person calls an employee of the owner to tell them they have the car
The employee of the owner says the have no knowledge of the car
It gets hauled off and sold at auction.
The buyer from the auction strips the car down into individual parts possibly causing damage in the process
The buyer from the auction contacts the employee of the owners and offers to GIVE YOU THE CAR back without repaying them for what ever the paid at auction.

The employee still denys the car is his
The buyer from the auction posts pictures of the car parts on the internet and also brags that he knows who the real owner is but never bothers to contact him directly
The owner of the car reports it stolen to the police
The buyer of the car reassembles the car and returns it to the owner
The police execute a search warrant while investigating a report of a stolen car

Crimes: Grand Theft Auto. Possession of stolen goods. Bad analogies.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[nurb432]

It depends on how it was released:

If it was stolen or honestly lost, then i agree, the ownership wasn't transferred.

If it was intentionally given away by an employee entrusted with its custody, but not company support, perhaps ownership IS transferred.

if it was leaked with company support, then they give up ownership rights off the bat.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[tomhudson]

read the whole series of links - if it's on your proprerty, you don't even need the 3 days ...

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[nomadic]

Iiiinteresting...I've never run into a law that was that drastic about it. Thanks for the link. Was that a bill that was actually passed, though?

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[Anonymous Coward]

Abandoned vehicles can be auctioned, sold, or kept if left over 30 days in most jurisdictions. The person who owns the property where the vehicle is abandoned must make a reasonable effort to contact the vehicles owner.. After 30 days the property owner can petition the court to have a new title issued in his name.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[tomhudson]

Idiot poster wrote:

Right, exactly, there's no way you can get title transferred simply by giving "notice."

Compare to whit I wrote:

No, but park it in my parking space, don't remove it after I have you served with a notice to either do so or that I will go to court and get title of it, and guess what - I *can* go to court and get title transferred.

You get your notice, you don't pay or take the car away, we go to court. You don't show to oppose the lien, I get title. How hard is that to understand? Oh, right - you don't want to admit that your prior post:

Uhhhh...what?? What law is this? IAAL and I've never heard of this legal maneuver.

... only exposed your ignorance, as several others have also pointed out.

In some jurisdictions, we have to go through the formality of a public auction, which is basically posting as small a notice as possible giving the time and date of the auction (make it an inconvenient time, date, and place), nobody showing up, and then getting the title transferred by the clerk.

It's how houses are sold "on the courthouse steps" all the time. The guy steps outside, reads the call for bidders (in a very low voice, so nobody hears him), looks around, walks back in, and says "No other bidders than the one I have in my pocket."

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[mjwx]

but I do know that from a legal standpoint I can "store" my property anywhere I want

Actually you can not "store" your property wherever you want. If you "store" something in my bar I am permitted to remove it (this includes a Porsche), however what I am not permitted to do is keep it or more importantly, sell it. Your best and logical recourse is to turn the object into the police, don't even bother trying to find the owner as they could easily assume you stole it and charge you, give it to the police. I don't know about the states but if you do this in Australia and no one claims the object you get to keep it after a certain period of time.

Many bars over here have simply stopped keeping lost property due to the liability involved.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[mjwx]

No, but park it in my parking space, don't remove it after I have you served with a notice to either do so or that I will go to court and get title of it, and guess what - I *can* go to court and get title transferred.

Uhhhh...what?? What law is this? IAAL and I've never heard of this legal manoeuvre.

In Australia, if you give a lost object to police and if it is not claimed in a certain amount of time ownership reverts to null and the finder is permitted to collect and keep the object. Of course there are significant exceptions like objects involved in crimes or objects that are registered like cars, if a car is impounded and unclaimed (or fees left unpaid) then ownership is reverted to the state which sells the car.

Laws in your nation may differ, of course.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[pipedwho]

Mod the parent up, +1 Informative.

It's truly scary how many other posts that display complete ignorance of the law have been modded +1 Insightful/Interesting/Informative.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[pipedwho]

That is a required clause in the content of the notification letter. Final notification is only part of the overall process, and not pertinent to someone just parking a fully registered car in someone else's space/property.

If a vehicle is abandoned and has not been claimed with sufficient time, then you can start the process (usually around a month after first notification).

For high value vehicles, or for situations where the owner opposes the transfer of title, then the process will involve the courts. The court, however, will NOT award you title of the vehicle, but may award reasonable storage/towing fees/expenses.

If something has really been abandoned, then the owner will usually not respond. At which point you can go through the appropriate salvage/junkage/abandonment regulations that do let you claim title.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[nate_in_ME]

I'm not sure if the changes in the bill I linked to were passed, however, the link I sent was a bill to modify the existing law, which had a 14 day time frame rather than the 7 days in the text I quoted(or maybe the other way around, I don't remember what the quote said ATM)...

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[nomadic]

Only the yahoo answer is wrong; if you look at the second link, the seller can only recoup certain expenses incurred, and doesn't get either the title or the full value of the car.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[nomadic]

You get your notice, you don't pay or take the car away, we go to court. You don't show to oppose the lien, I get title. How hard is that to understand? Oh, right - you don't want to admit that your prior post:

You are completely missing the point, you really don't know what you're talking about; as I've mentioned several times, generally the title ISN'T TRANSFERRED. You simply get a security interest in the car, and under certain circumstances the right to force a sale, the proceeds of which will go towards discharging the debt you hold.

The only poster who actually show evidence to the contrary was one who cited a single law in a single state that actually allows the lienholder to get the car.

In some jurisdictions, we have to go through the formality of a public auction, which is basically posting as small a notice as possible giving the time and date of the auction (make it an inconvenient time, date, and place), nobody showing up, and then getting the title transferred by the clerk.

Generally in the jurisdictions I am familiar with, the clerk carries out the auction, and there are plenty of people present. The title isn't transferred because of the lien, it's transferred because the person holding the lien is essentially buying the property. If the sale price is higher than the amount which is liened the person who held title gets the overage, possibly minus administrative fees.

You do not understand the basic principles behind what a lien truly is.

Re:They need to stop arresting the FINDERS

[tomhudson]

If you had followed the links I've posted elsewhere, you would see that you indeed get TITLE, not a "security interest in the car". Maybe you should get out more often, your experience is too limited and is blinding you to the fact that there are plenty of places that will transfer the title.

You're thinking of lien-holders for loans against the vehicle. NOT the same thing. Different laws apply, because of consumer protection laws and the terms of the contract.

Uh

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so there's this guy speaking in tongues whipping around and tapping on a plastic iPhone-looking device with a sticker of a red fireball on it.

You'd think if it were real he'd try to boot it up and show us the OS, or is this some kind of alien foreplay?

Re:Uh

[netsavior]

Asshat racism of the parent aside, with a CNC machine and an existing iPhone, you could make a fake pretty easily.

Finders, keepers

[ikefox]

When this happened the first time around, I briefly questioned whether or not it might be a publicity leak. Now I have confirmation that Apple is just as good at holding on to their trade secrets as I was at keeping up with my homework in the 4th grade. Also, why can't I ever find a prototype of some highly-anticipated tech candy left unattended in a bar somewhere?

Re:Finders, keepers

[Darth Sdlavrot]

Also, why can't I ever find a prototype of some highly-anticipated tech candy left unattended in a bar somewhere?

Probably for the same reason I can't pick the stocks that are going to zoom from $80 to $250 in six months.

Re:Finders, keepers

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, why can't I ever find a prototype of some highly-anticipated tech candy left unattended in a bar somewhere?

Probably for the same reason I can't pick the stocks that are going to zoom from $80 to $250 in six months.

That's because you're not trying

lessons from the past

[kylant]

The iPhone-liberators have certainly learnt from the past:
Instead of exposing themselves to corporate controlled police action again they decided to export the phone to a free country before publishing their victory.

Wait, there is something seriously wrong about this...

Re:lessons from the past

[Kazymyr]

I know. It's kinda scary isn't it?

Re:lessons from the past

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Instead of exposing themselves to corporate controlled police action again they decided to export the phone to a free country before publishing their victory.

Instead of exposing themselves to rule by law again they decided to export the phone to a lawless country before publishing their theft.

Re:lessons from the past

[kylant]

Instead of exposing themselves to rule by law again they decided to export the phone to a lawless country before publishing their theft.

Interesting. Rule of law is not necessarily related to freedom. Some of the most unfree regimes in European history had almost perfect rule of law. What is freedom of the press in one country is a crime in a different one. I don't recall theft being mentioned in the original article.

Re:lessons from the past

[pipedwho]

I don't recall theft being mentioned in the original article.

Even Vietnam would frown on someone actually acknowledging that they had stolen someone else's property. Especially if the article included a full confession with details of how the property was stolen.

That is most likely the reason that theft was not mentioned in the article.

Most people would accept (except for the Apple conspiracy theorists) that Apple wouldn't have just given this guy a prototype next gen iPhone. That means that this guy is in possession of stolen property. Whether or not Vietnam has the legal infrastructure in place to handle this is another story, but that doesn't diminish the fact that the phone was probably not legitimately acquired.

Re:lessons from the past

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Interesting. Rule of law is not necessarily related to freedom.

Not necessarily, perhaps, perhaps not. Are you truly free if you live in a benevolent dictatorship where someone has the legal ability to arbitrarily enforce decisions upon you not encoded into law?

Some of the most unfree regimes in European history had almost perfect rule of law.

Can you give an example? Most of the unfree regimes in European history I can think of had laws applied to some, but not all, arbitrarily based upon the whims of those in power. I can't think of any where there were actually laws enforced equally as required for a "rule by law" instead of "rule by man" situation.

What is freedom of the press in one country is a crime in a different one.

Well sort of. In Belize you can freely tell everyone how you murdered someone in the US... but that doesn't mean they have more freedom of speech, just no extradition treaty for crimes committed elsewhere.

I don't recall theft being mentioned in the original article.

I don't recall that it was, but that's no reason to think this was not a theft. Can you think of a more plausible way they "acquired" the device?

First time...

[Theoboley]

shame on Gray .... Second time, Shame on Apple...

Re:First time...

[Anonymous Coward]

You fool me, you can't get fooled again!

Isn't there an app for that situation?

[Errol backfiring]

Like one that yells "Hey, don't leave me!" every two minutes.

So what?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Every Apple product since the 1st gen iPod has been leaked. Why is this being reported?

By the way, The Reg reports that it runs on the same A4 1GHz processor as the iPad does. They have pictures, too.

Re:So what?

[Tim C]

Because Slashdot is in love with Apple. In fact, if I were feeling particularly cynical and suspicious, I'd wonder who that "anonymous reader" is, and if in fact the notes had pictures of dead presidents on them...

Re:So what?

[Bing Tsher E]

This is apple.slashdot.org, not slashdot. Some days it gets to feel like slashdot.org has licensed a subdomain to Apple. Maybe the money from it pays for the rest of Slashdot.

Re:So what?

[Xuranova]

There is a poster on every other general tech site who says "" loves Apple". If every tech site except the dedicated windows/linux site loves Apple, isn't there the slight chance there is a decent reason for it? I'm guessing you aren't the biggest fan of Apple since you felt the need to make this routine Apple bias post.

I can't wait till someone makes it possible to filter out the hate from any and all threads that pertain to said company. Threads would be probably less than half as long :)

Great

[elrous0]

Well, looks like our boys are going back to Vietnam.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Robin Williams available right now?

Re:Great

[dintech]

...and if you want to invade there's an app for that.

Re:Great

[elrous0]

Unfortunately for the troops, yes.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Robin Williams? How about a real comedian?

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Never heard of this guy.

Not wow. Marketing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy and cheap - "look, we got to the front page of /. again, practically for free".

Re:Not wow. Marketing.

[Anonymous Coward]

They have to be saying that at least 5-6 times a day, the way the /. editors seem to think anything remotely Apple related is some kind of big news deal, lately.

Re:Not wow. Marketing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's because Apple does cool things and makes interesting products worth talking about. Unlike M$, the praise of Apple products comes from more than the company's own marketing department.

Re:Not wow. Marketing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the laugh. +5, Irony

Re:Not wow. Marketing.

[Anonymous Coward]

+ 5 Funny! or maybe +5 Kool-Aid?

Unlike MS, Apple puts all their money into marketing (and a good chunk to paid bloggers and peopel who "lose" and "find" their newest products). They are geniuses at creating solutions with no problems, like the iPhad.

Re:Not wow. Marketing.

[mgblst]

We all know how many millions that translates too, especially when you don't even have the product for sale yet. And Apple really needed this, everybody seems to have lost interest in the iPhone, except for, you know, the last quarter where they sold a record number.

Is Apple a little worried?

[jacks smirking reven]

I know it's a stretch, but does anyone else think these are, if not leaked by Apple directly, overlooked by the people who are there to keep things under wraps. It's far fetched but I think it could be related to that this new iPhone, while very nice, isn't all that "special" like iPhones were 3 or so years ago. Spec-wise it's pretty much on par with existing Android sets out in the field, without even thinking about the ones down the line.

Not that it isn't going to sell a billion of them simply because they're iPhones, but the wow factor seems to have faded.

Re:Is Apple a little worried?

[cowscows]

How many iphones do you think Apple has sold on the basis of tech specs? The only spec that 95% of the people who have bought them so far cared about is that it has a big screen. None of the other numbers matter to the average person.

Please stop the apple spam

[noonc]

I personally can't stand it anymore, I wish people would just stop reporting such thing when it's obviously going to benefit their guerilla marketing strategy. Then again, do whatever you want. I'll try to find a way to get rid of the Apple category in my browser on here for good... G5 and that was the end.

Re:Please stop the apple spam

[intheshelter]

Bring on more Apple stories, I'm not a blind hater like noonc!

Re:Please stop the apple spam

[sbeckstead]

I personally can't stand it anymore
I personally can stand it much more. Good riddance!

Re:Please stop the apple spam

[bledri]

Let me help you with that...

Re:Please stop the apple spam

[BitZtream]

The problem is, we want SOME Apple news, just not stories every time they sneeze.

Will the next blog buyer be smarter

[syntap]

and do a full technical bust-open of the unit before FedExing back to Apple to show they returned it in a reasonable time?

Lost your phone?

[Chrisq]

Lost your phone? We've got an app for that .... wait damn it's in flash.

Re:Lost your phone?

[BitZtream]

Except there is an app for that, and it isn't flash, and its built into every iphone since the 3G

https://secure.me.com/account/#findmyiphone

Apple Security...

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the Apple Corporation security and anti industrial-espionage was modeled by the UI designers of MacOS-X: sleek, polished but without meaningful features like "carry this prototype only inside the Apple Corp. restricted area". Probably to keep it minimal they haven't even put a "do not ever lose this prototype or you'll be fired" line on their internal legal waivers.

Re:Apple Security...

[Panaflex]

Well there's competing interests here... you really need to test phones out in the field, across as many networks as possible. After all, a class action lawsuit, bad publicity and lost sales is probably far worse than loosing a few devices.

The problem with ultra-tight security is that people get lax over the years. A basic study of armed forces long-term defense plans reveal most of the common issues.

small correction

[Ian-K]

Wonder when the swat team will get called in.

Oh ...

[lennier1]

Nice!
A 4000$ paper weight.

With apologies to Mr. Wilde ...

[slashsloth]

To lose one 4G iPhone, Mr. Jobs, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two looks like carelessness.

Re:With apologies to Mr. Wilde ...

[ducomputergeek]

no....

Losing one iPhone 4G is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence.
Three times is a marketing campaign.

Interactive teardown on YouTube

[Anonymous Coward]

Chris Klingmeyer tears down 4G iPhone

When does Gizmodo guy get his computers back?

[tekrat]

And a full apology from the Storm Troopers?

At this point, it's pretty clear that NOTHING WAS STOLEN, clearly, Apple is intentionally "losing" these phones to continue to generate buzz. So unless Jason Chen was part of the viral marketing campaign (if so, I hope he's being paid real well to have his door kicked in), I think the California Police Department of Overreaction owes this guy some crow-eating.

Apple is the guilty party, and you can't be in possetion of stolen property if it was intentionally "lost" by the rightful owner. That's called a "free sample". And if the Police State we live in can't tell the difference anymore, then companies shouldn't be allowed to viral market.

Re:When does Gizmodo guy get his computers back?

[canajin56]

I hope somebody steals your car and goes for a joyride, then dumps it a ditch, and the police say "Well, we know who it was because they posted a clip of themselves on youtube, but you have it back, nothing was stolen, get the fuck out of here!"

Re:When does Gizmodo guy get his computers back?

[geekoid]

"Apple is intentionally "losing" these phones to continue to generate buzz."

what the hell do you base that one? two missing phones?

yeah, there was a lottery drawing with two winners. Clearly it's an attempt by Big Lottery to market their product. The odds are two small for that to actually happen.

Re:When does Gizmodo guy get his computers back?

[sbeckstead]

clearly, Apple is intentionally "losing" these phones
Please, I'd like to see your sources for this assertion.
Clearly you are just jumping to conclusions.
Clearly you do not know anything about the law.
I can support my assertions, how about you?

Fake screen?

[marciot]

Why does this phone appear to have a fake, non-functional screen? Looks like one of those cardboard computers you see in furniture stores.

Re:Fake screen?

[Panaflex]

It's working.. look at the battery bar graph on the bottom - it flips between 2% and other values @ 0:55.

Re:Fake screen?

[Sockatume]

It's real, it's just (if rumours are to believed) got an absurd pixel density and (my own speculation) a pretty stonking viewing angle thanks to an IPS panel.

Re:Fake screen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does this phone appear to have a fake, non-functional screen? Looks like one of those cardboard computers you see in furniture stores.

After bouncing around between "colored translucent plastic", "white plastic", and "brushed steel" for the better part of a decade or so, Apple feels it best to shoot for a new design style...

Re:Fake screen?

[marciot]

It's working.. look at the battery bar graph on the bottom - it flips between 2% and other values @ 0:55.

Wow. You're absolutely right. Color me very impressed.

It's very amusing that the screen on that is so sharp and clear in the daylight that it actually looks fake. I guess it goes to show how accustomed we are to crappy LCD displays.

Re:Fake screen?

[Theaetetus]

It's working.. look at the battery bar graph on the bottom - it flips between 2% and other values @ 0:55.

Yeah, but that's not the iPhone OS. Note also that it doesn't respond to to the accelerometer, and when he hits the volume buttons and mute switch on the side, there's no UI element other than possibly the bars at the very bottom of the screen.

It's not a non-working fake, but it's not an iPhone.

Re:Fake screen?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a video of it, during which you can see the battery life change from 3% to 1%

Re:Fake screen?

[WestCoastBogeyMan]

I noticed that too... I thought it's either bricked or it's some sort of fake image. It seemed to me that the guy pressed the home button a couple of times and nothing happened. Also, there was no visible response when the SIM card was taken out and [not] re-inserted.

Re:Fake screen?

[edelbrp]

It appears to be some sort of test suite. It's hard to read, but the small type at the bottom appears to say:

Start Time: Run Bonfire!
Test: Run Bonfire!
Iteration: 0
Action: Run Bonfire!
Battery: 3 percent
(build # or something?) Root - Inf. 1.0

Probably a phone taken from a test bench or something.

Wrong question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone heard anything from him BEFORE?
Does anyone actually know him IRL-like?
Did he ever really exist or is "Mr. Gray" just an imaginary character created by Apple's marketing department?

I have to go now... my shipment of tin foil I've ordered from China (via dummy corporation in Singapore) has just arrived.

Is this some kind of half assed viral marketing?

[Liambp]

I doubt it myself but it is generating quite a bit of interweb buzz around the new phone.

I think it is an appropriate time to misquote Oscar Wilde:
"To lose one phone, Mr. Jobs, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness."

Time for a conspiracy theory!

[mdm-adph]

The last one happened right in time for the release of the HTC Incredible -- I wonder if this "leak" has anything to do with yesterday's story about Android sales overtaking the iPhone...

Re:Time for a conspiracy theory!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the Sprint/HTC Evo event tonight. Or the recently reported 450% performance increase of Android with the JIT compiler included in Froyo...

Re:Time for a conspiracy theory!

[repetty]

> "The last one happened right in time for the release of the HTC Incredible -- I wonder if this "leak" has anything to do with yesterday's story about Android sales overtaking the iPhone [gizmodo.com]..."

No, but don't repeat things like that. There are a lot of gullible half-wits out there who love that sort of stuff -- and I have to listen to many of them because they're friends and/or relatives.

Re:Time for a conspiracy theory!

[mdm-adph]

Ah, but in the business world, there is no such thing as conspiracies, only profits to be made.

You have to admit that if Apple can keep themselves in the news for a few more months, staving off any more people abandoning the platform for Android (now that their AT&T contracts are up), it'd certainly be profitable for them in the end...

hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

this is not too long after it was announced that android OS phones was out selling the iphone.... just sayin'

Re:hmm....

[sbeckstead]

No, Android OS was more prevalent than iPhone OS. Yes More phones run Android, so what. There are more cockroaches than people, but I wouldn't want to have lots of them around all the time.

Re:hmm....

[Anonymous Coward]

Aww, fanboy gettin' mad.

You've ruined it!

[slashworkninja]

As Steve said, "If you've lost two prototypes, you've ruined it!" Heh! Apple needs to have somebody strip search all employees when they leave the premises. I recommend Steve.

Of course it is a pure coincidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it is a pure coincidence that the news appears one day after the announcement that android headset sales beat iPhone in first quarter of the year...

Deception

[Dan East]

Now that I've thought about this more, if Apple were really, REALLY, clever, they would plant fakes - perhaps prototypes, or even specially created units - just to lead everyone off track. The planting of a second unit exactly matching the first would only reinforce the illusion.

So these are either the real units, or they are a strategic deception by Apple.

Re:Deception

[gyrogeerloose]

So these are either the real units, or they are a strategic deception by Apple.

I think that if Apple were to release a strategic deception, they would have released it somewhere other than Vietnam. My guess is that this thing was a test sample pulled off the production line in the Chinese factory that got away.

Re:Deception

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. This is why Apple should go back to manufacturing prototypes in Elk Grove instead of building them in China. These things have a way of getting "lost" over there far too often.

Re:Deception

[gyrogeerloose]

Yeah, probably a good point. Apple's Elk Grove facility appears to have become mostly a warehousing/distribution operation.

Apropos to nothing, I made a delivery there once back when I was driving an 18-wheeler. One of the best-run receiving operations I ever encountered--a bit more paperwork than usual but I was in and out in less than 45 minutes. To a truck driver who's paid by the mile and makes nothing while he's waiting to be unloaded, that's like money in the bank.

Re:Deception

[mgblst]

So these are either the real units, or they are a strategic deception by Apple.

So they are either real, or not real. Seriously, what else could they be?

Re:Deception

[dangitman]

Now that I've thought about this more, if Apple were really, REALLY, clever, they would plant fakes

That's not clever at all. It's fucking stupid, and a waste of time and resources. Why would they spend effort doing that, rather than concentrating on developing new products and marketing existing ones?

Re:Deception

[kestasjk]

Yeah why not develop two working products so you can release one of them as a decoy?

iPhone or iPhone mockup

[joeyblades]

What's the deal with this phone. It sort of looked like it was powered up but it didn't act like it. I mean, if this were a real iPhone wouldn't we expect to see some GUI action or something more happening on the display? Looks more like a mockup to me...

Ambassador...

[Hasai]

“...are you saying that you've lost another nuclear submarine?”

];)

Re:Ambassador...

[sootman]

Ob. Broken Arrow: "I don't know what's scarier: losing nuclear weapons, or that it happens so often there's actually a term for it."

I'm picturing Jonathan Ive, rushing into Steve Jobs' office: "Steve, we've got a broken telegraph!"

I see what you did here...

[Anonymous Coward]

[...] Steve. Wonder [...]

And the next time:

[qengho]

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action.

-Goldfinger

Another Fifteen Minutes Needed, Apparently

[Bing Tsher E]

The previous 15 Minutes of Fame arrived at through the previously lost Iphone prototype must have worn off. So it's time to get in the news again.

It's just a dumb cell phone. Do we get Slashdot articles every time a Noikia prototype goes missing in the lab?

This site is better than that. Though, as I have commented in the past, this is apple.slashdot.org, not slashdot.

Re:Another Fifteen Minutes Needed, Apparently

[Voyager529]

It's just a dumb cell phone. Do we get Slashdot articles every time a Noikia prototype goes missing in the lab?

Last I checked, the iPhone was classified as a SMARTphone. And I'm pretty sure that we DO, in fact, get Slashdot articles every time a Nokia prototype goes missing. Note the lack of said articles, though...

Re:Another Fifteen Minutes Needed, Apparently

[sbeckstead]

Says a guy with Bing in his name?

Search engine trap

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't seem like the most efficient distribution mechanism, Steve. Wonder if the SWAT team will get called in.

What have you got against people searching the Web for Steve Wonder?

Screen resolution this time I hope.

[ad454]

The last time, despite having it in their hands, Gizmodo was not able to get the specific resolution of the iPhone 4G prototype display. As an iPhone developer, it would be nice to have a heads up about the new resolution, so we can modify our current and future apps to support it.

My wish would be to have it match the iPad's XGA (1024x768) resolution, so that it can run iPad apps, but I doubt it in the iPhone's form factor. The 960x640 resolution suggested would also be unlikely, since there aren't really any off-the-shelf LCD's with that native resolution. My bet would be something like 800x480, like the HTC HD2 phone, since there are already existing LCD's that support it.

Re:Screen resolution this time I hope.

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Why would you want to run iPad apps on such a tiny screen?

Re:Screen resolution this time I hope.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would bet 10:1 odds that it will be 960x640. The vast majority of apps on the app store do not scale to screen size; this resolution would allow them to simply pixel double all existing apps, the same way the iPad does, except they would then run full-screen.

Clever Marketing Stunt?

[dimethylxanthine]

I imagine Apple would know a thing or two about viral marketing that generates enough interest to make fans want to squat the eastern end of Central Park two days before launch (at least makes for a bit eco-tourism for those who don't know what being outside means.) But frankly, if this were indeed a second loss in the series, apart from implying the next-gen is decidedly near RTM stage, they must have handed the prototypes to a particularly reckless type of testers. Just 2c. RFC

Second time, STILL no resolution confirmation

[AbRASiON]

Argh!
We do know it's the A4 chip now at least and sadly it will come as small as 16gb!
Not good :/

See, the thing is...

[msauve]

You think Sprint wants to sell you a new phone. They don't. They want you to continue paying for your monthly service. If you want to delay buying a heavily subsidized phone, that's perfectly OK with them. In fact, the more you delay, the more money they make off of you.

Re:See, the thing is...

[DrgnDancer]

But HTC wants to sell him a new phone. Since his comment was directed at HTC, it makes perfect sense.

Re:See, the thing is...

[msauve]

Silly me. When he said "Sprint needs to learn a lesson about this effect..." you immediately understood that he was referring to HTC, while I mistakenly thought he was talking about Sprint.

Re:See, the thing is...

[DrgnDancer]

Bah, I completely misread that somehow, you're right. His comment *should* have been directed at HTC, and somehow in my head it was.

Stevie Wonder?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone else read the summary and think Stevie Wonder?

Re:Stevie Wonder?

[KatchooNJ]

I did! I just posted about it a few minutes ago, too. I didn't se your post regarding it.

I wonder why...

[ctrl-alt-canc]

who found it took care of collecting it. After all, it does not run neither linux nor flash...

I wonder if Taco is still bitter...

[Duradin]

I wonder if Taco is still bitter about how "Less space than a Nomad. No wireless. Lame." turned out for him.

My vote is that yes, yes he is.

Apple doesn't get to call out SWAT. The Cops use SWAT for everything these days. Apple wouldn't need SWAT anyways as they have their Black Turtleneck Ninja Corps.

Re:I wonder if Taco is still bitter...

[Anonymous Monkey]

Corps...Is lord Jobs dead?

Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple products don't have silicon chips inside. They run on harvested tears.

Bonfire?

[nmg196]

So what's that "bonfire" app that seems to be running? Some kind of remote kill software?

fake

[Anonymous Coward]

So why is it that he isn't able to do anything with the phone. Through the whole video all we see is the same fixed image, even in the picture of it. Am I the only one who thinks this guy made a fake?

Does

[dominious]

the video remind you of this video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSN_g6DjKQ8 Sorry couldn't find the english version

Bad aura is brewing around G4 iPhone ...

[Ruvim]

It feels like there is a trend of bad things happening to people who get close to G4 iPhone. This could become a problem with product perception for marketing of this device when Apple actually goes live with it...

On the other hand, it's Apple we are talking about -- people will buy even plastic-covered vomit from them, as long as it's called iVomit.

Anniversary of Vietnam War

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't it this year or something?!

Now, the perfect excuse to invade Vietnam and finish what we've started in the last century. After all, with so many Nike factories in Vietnam it would be like taking a walk in Portland.

What does that mean in english?

[BancBoy]

From TFS - "An anonymous reader noted that appears that"
Hey Taco, what the hell is that?

What's not working?

[davmoo]

This doesn't seem like the most efficient distribution mechanism

That's because its not a distribution method, its a free press generation mechanism. And its working even beyond Apple's and His Holiness' wildest dreams.

So what?

[Animats]

Who cares? It's just another phone. A leak of the first iPhone, or the first iPad, or the first iPod would have been a big deal. But this is just a minor upgrade for an existing product. Corner rounding slightly different, components a little smaller, different case assembly. Besides, this one clearly doesn't work. Yawn.

Stevie Wonder?

[KatchooNJ]

"Steve. Wonder"

When I originally glanced at these words together in the OP's post, I thought it was a reference to Stevie Wonder. For a moment, I thought the OP was making a joke about how they seem to be handing these phones out to blind folk or something.

Back to the point...

[BrokenHalo]

Isn't that called burglarized?

Only if you like to manglerize your language.

But getting back to the topic: I wonder how long Apple is going to kid itself that anyone really cares about the latest iPhone. Their first offering was (from the objective viewpoint of someone who uses a phone to make calls) shiny and had the advantage of novelty, but Apple has made little material improvement on that.

People can only take so much novelty (however well-directed) in a given direction before it becomes old hat. For instance, the iPod has by far the most effective and intuitive interface of any mp3 player, but has become regarded as dated and treated as an also-ran by comparison with the iPhone, despite the fact that the latter is arguably not very good at playing and managing a music library.

Apple can send in all the swat teams they want (provided they don't care about the karma hit) to defend their pre-release secrecy, but it won't do them a damn bit of good if their product is just more of the same - which is what it looks like.

Re:Back to the point...

[serviscope_minor]

Only if you like to manglerize your language.

There is nothing wrong with the term burglarized. The base word is burglar. In England, we back-formed the verb burgle which essentially is based on "burglar" sounding like "burgler" (as in someone who burgles). This is simply a back formation. The Americans instead chose to form the verb burglarize to describe it by appending a fairly gereric suffix which seems to serve the purpose. Neither word is more or less correct than the other.

And you'll note very caregully that "mangle" ends in "le". Your point would only have valididity if someone who mangled was a manglar.

let's not mince words then

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of those areas where /. readers love to pontificate on the precise meaning of words and totally lose sight of what the intent might be.

You're absolutely right. Technically, not returning Apple's 4G lost prototypes may be "theft". Realistically, when an overbearing and arrogant company like that has its drunk employees leave supposedly valuable prototypes in bars, and when one can't even be sure that it isn't just a publicity stunt, I say "serves them right".

Apple is secretly revealing it's next product!

[Timewasted]

The iJail

All you need to do to obtain one is find one of Apple's next generation products that are not on the market, and Steve will see to it personally that you get a free iJail!

I remember when my BlackBerry was stolen

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

It was at a club in Las Vegas. I called the LVPD and they immediately got hot on the trail to find the perp. I then called AT&T, and they employed all of their special tracking software to activate the phone's GPS and locate it to aid the police.

NOT! The police sent me a letter with the information I gave them over the phone and most disappointing was AT&T, who offered me a $50 discount on a replacement, but only because I had been a customer for so long. I guess AT&T looks at the stolen phone as a potential new customer and could care less about the $1000 a year they get from me, because they know I'll just get a new phone regardless.

Another "leak" woohooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Wooohoo another iPhone "leak"
So what?
Apple is starting to be really ridiculous. Perhaps someday they'll hype themselves to death by teasing customers (not consumers) to a frenzy and Jobs will be raped for all he's got, live at AppleCon (whatever is the big brainwashing event called)
When I think in the meantime Foxxconn murder their own employees on behalf of the Apple marketing schemes...

Just trying to cover up the Android news

[Anonymous Coward]

This is obviously an intentional loss from Apple to try and cover up the story about Android OS outdoing the iPhone...

They know that the last time this happened it's all anybody wanted to talk about so in order to shift the attention of anyone who was thinking "I'll need to check Android out" back to the iPhone they "lost" another one. Now everyone is talking about Apple again *sigh*

It's a Trap

[Anonymous Coward]

The "mad as you come tin foil hatter" in me seems to think that this is a perfect opportunity for Apple to throw people off their true designs by showing one in a different configuration not so long after the first one showed up on the inter tubes.
No doubt there will be endless threads and loss of bandwidth as those points are discussed.
I would suggest it will take some time before Apple responds - if at all.
One would think that Apple would have the prototypes locked down like Fort Knox by now if they were so afraid of them "escaping into the wild".

Wow, a troll ...

[sbeckstead]

I'm sorry there doesn't seem to be any way to mark an entire story as a troll. Ah well, it would just get it talked about anyway.

This gives us a hint at the new iPhone tech

[WSOGMM]

It's clear that apple has harnessed the power of ballpoint pen technology. The alarming amount of phone losses is directly related to the normally high amount of ballpoint pen losses. It is expected that this will double the amount of phones sold, as, like ballpoints, iPhones will often be misplaced and permanently lost.

Purposely

[sirknala]

Has anyone stopped to think maybe they are doing this on purpose? It is a headline snatcher.

The big news here is

[Mike Buddha]

The big news here is that Apple is testing the phone's connectivity outside of their lab, unlike the 2G, 3G, and 3GS. Maybe this one won't suck as a phone? After owning a 3G and 3GS, I discovered that the killer app for a smartphone is being able to make phonecalls. Droid does.

Re:The big news here is

[SnapperHead]

Um, Apple has tested each iPhone outside of the lab. I remember seeing some pictures of the original iPhone being used on Caltrain way before release and shortly after it was announced. Of course the person using it didn't know they had their picture taken using it.

This is just the first time that Apple lost any of the devices.

The connectivity issues with the iPhone are not because of the device, its because of the awful AT&T network.

Re:The big news here is

[Mike Buddha]

The connectivity issues with the iPhone are not because of the device, its because of the awful AT&T network.

It's interesting you make that claim, because I was using the 3G and the 3GS in the very same apartment, the very same workplace, the very same parks that I used my Samsung Blackjack 2, on the same 3G network, and never had any issues with calls dropping, not getting voicemail, not getting SMSs, data throughput. After I ditched the 3GS, until I picked up the Droid, I went back to using the BJ2, and surprise surprise, same great service. No, the iPhone is a piece of crap phone, and that's a fact. AT&T is fine.

Faraday cage, anyone?

[Hackineer]

The first thing anyone who finds one of these gems should do it immediately place the phone in a Faraday cage to block the cellular signal so Apple can't remotely brick it. This could be as simple as wrapping it in aluminum foil. Don't unwrap it until you are sure it is safe. Shouldn't that just be common sense? Of course if Apple is smart, the phone will brick itself if after some period of time it can't establish contact with Apple for authentication.

Odd timing

[ThatsNotPudding]

A report out today of another Foxconn worker committing suicide, following on one earlier in the week: http://www.manufacturing.net/article.aspx?id=256282
Maybe this one actually was swiped instead of just lost like the first. Another 'overzealous' Foxconn investigation perhaps?

It's a feature...

[farnsaw]

The 4th Generation iPhone comes with a cloaking device... unfortunately this uses a lot of power so it will drain the battery fairly quickly. This is why the phone get's left behind and then is found by others.

Why is this modded funny?

[bledri]

...and if you want to invade there's an app for that.

There really is an app for that.

Damn... don't make me correct you!

[repetty]

> "No replaceable battery" - I won't use it on the plane to watch that movie, that way I can make sure to call a cab when I land.

Have you ever actually USED an iPhone?

re: adjusting behavior to devices

[King_TJ]

Sure, but don't we ALWAYS adjust our behavior to devices? (Oh, I'm sorry... some of your engineering and software developer types out there think YOUR creations are so perfectly crafted, they just meet everyone's needs intuitively and without compromise, right?!)

Seriously ... who wouldn't like a cellphone that never worries you with a battery running down and needing to be swapped with a charged one, or recharged? Who wouldn't like a fast network connection anywhere, without any caps or usage restrictions, and a display that's always able to show your video in its original resolution, no matter how high it was?

I *always* feel like I'm making compromises when using a cellphone, no matter WHICH model it is. Data entry is a pain on all of them, to some extent, for starters.

The iPhone, like any other device, forces a lot of limitations on the user -- and he/she has to learn to adjust to those, in order to effectively use it. Unless those restrictions are unacceptably bad, though, they're par for the course. I don't think things like "lack of multitasking" are that big a deal at all, really. They're more of selling points the competition wants to hype up than anything else. People's brains really don't multitask to begin with, so merely using a cellphone while doing anything else involves a lot of "task switching" for us, and a relative lack of concentration/attention paid to BOTH activities. We'd be better off not trying so hard to make matters even worse, by demanding our phones let us listen to music while reading/replying to emails, etc.

Re: adjusting behavior to devices

[Macthorpe]

I don't think the choice is necessarily between "adjusting my behaviour to the device" and "my device is perfect already". That seems like a false dichotomy.

A valid third option that I get with my HTC Hero is "adjusting my device to my behaviour".

it's like GMail

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll have to wait for a friend to "lose" their phone near you so that you can get one.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

NARC

[Anonymous Coward]

Says a guy with the letters D, E, and A in his name.

-- "Computer Scientists can count to 1024 on their

[robi5]

1023

Pesky laws ...

[Udo Schmitz]

Let see. Person find phone on bar. the owner no where around. Trie to contact the owner. No luck Calls Apple, Apple insists it isn't theirs.

And this is the point where you have to give it to the police. Crazy californians, I know. Surely nowhere else are such crazy laws in place.

Or are there ...?

well they had too...

[gearloos]

The free publicity from the first one was dying down and they still have a ways to go before release..Duh.

To what end?

[Anonymous Coward]

What would be the point of doing what you described? NONE. There is no point to doing what you claim. For marketing? Please. Apple can hook the media whenever it feels like just by issuing a press release, and then the sheeple speculate endlessly.

Re:-- "Computer Scientists can count to 1024 on th

[farnsaw]

Put your hands down when you hit 1024... there you are.

Fake Chinese Clone

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet this is a fake Chinese iPhone clone. Same with the previous "leak," for that matter.

What about a disgruntled employee?

[John.Banister]

Tired of being harassed by that security fellow who thinks the next round of mediocre upgrades should be such an amazing secret.

I hate defending Apple but...

[mjwx]

Person find phone on bar. the owner no where around.
Trie to contact the owner. No luck
Calls Apple, Apple insists it isn't theirs.
Sells it to Gizmnodo.

Step 2 is where it started to go wrong, step 4 is where it actually gets illegal. I think the whole thing was an organised leak but lets assume I accept your assertion at face value...

Step two should have been:
"Dropped it off at police station."

In Australia, our laws require this. If no one claims it within a reasonable amount of time the object is yours to keep if you want it. Realistically this should be your first reaction, if not your second as you could easily get in trouble for attempting to find the owner (you get accused of stealing it, maybe even stalking). Whatever you do, you do not sell the object as it's not yours to sell as it trading in stolen goods regardless of whether you found it or stole it.

I think you're missing a few possibilities.

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

I can easily think of other possibilities that don't require an Evil Conspiracy(TM):

1. They've expanded their program to have employees test the prototypes in the real world, either by giving the prototypes to a larger number of employees, or by making it easier for them to take it out of the office (suggested by the fact that they had an iPhone cover custom-made to disguise these phones!). Correspondingly the chance of losing a phone went up.
2. They're just being randomly unlucky this time around, and lost more phones than normal.
3. They're losing about as many phones as they did in the past, but in a different case of random unluck, in previous occasions the finders actually returned them without leaking them. People simply assume that no Apple tester ever lost a prototype like this before, but frankly, I wouldn't be surprised at all if this has happened at least once with a prototype of an earlier model.

Re:I think you're missing a few possibilities.

[kannibal_klown]

I can easily think of other possibilities that don't require an Evil Conspiracy(TM):

I accept that, and my second bullet point covers that. Though I say "careless" and "intoxicated" instead of unlucky.

It's bound to happen, though you'd think after the fiasco recently that those with the secret 4g phones would be very very very careful.

But mistakes happen.

OR

[sproketboy]

It's a marketing stunt.

Maybe this is their new distribution channel

[savethelecture]

Actually, that sounds like they are testing their new beta-testing environment. Steve is sly, you know...

Well...

[DABANSHEE]

There's 2 charges there, 'Break 'n entering' & Malicious damage.

Now if the bloke found the key to the front door 'n just walked in & had not reformatted the hard drive, then maybe we could assume no law is broken.

Trespass doesn't apply unless:-
A, The intruder is forewarned directly - "hey mate don't go in there, it's private property & you'll be trespassing & prosecuted for it".
B, There's visible signs with a similar message as the quote above - "Do not enter - Private property - Trespassers will be prosecuted"
C, The intruder was discovered on the same property on a previous occasion & was told that if he entered the property again (without invitation) he'd be prosecuted for trespassing.

So if you live in the county

[niftymitch]

So if you live in the county where this might come to trial.

Does making a comment on /. imply that you are biased on this and have a information and opinions that are well outside of what court might present to a juror?

I am inclined to think that it could and not disclosing your comments on /. could place you in contempt of court.

After reading /. and some of the other Internet postings I am of a mind that should this come to court it would be because the county and other companies or agencies pushed it to court.

Further I am of the opinion that the law that is being pushed is being unfairly applied and that anyone that takes in a stray dog or cat is likewise guilty of the same violation. Even if the individual posted pictures of the dog/ cat on the telephone poll in front of the home of the owner it would be a felony to give or sell the dog/ cat into what you believe to be a happy home. This would make most non profit rescue organizations serial violators of this statute because at no time was the "property" returned to the police or deputized and bonded agent.

The phone should have had a "send me home" phone number... If found call 650-555-1212, or send via USPS mail to PO box... for a reward.

I have seen big network news reporters make statements that they have a right to information and are not liable should their source obtain it by -- well she just did not care how she got it.

I think that there are too many dirt ball heads in this now.