Apple Wants Its Secret iPhone Back

FranklyShankly said:
Found property as a general rule gives you the right of ownership as to all others but the true owner. If the true owner can be identified, it is still theirs.

There are exceptions, but I think that applies here.
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The fact that Gawker (Gizmodo) paid $5000 for the prototype indicates that they believed it was real. And if it's real, it's obviously Apple's (Apple corporate) property. That means that Gawker is knowingly buying stolen property.

Gawker is trying to weasel out of this by claiming that they didn't know whether the phone was authentic when they bought it - which is total crap. Gawker isn't going to spend $5000 on a knock-off.

It's unlikely that much is going to come of this; the damage has been done and suing Gizmodo will just make a big media stink. Gawker probably knows this, and they decided to take the risk.
 
I do not own an iphone, I will never own an iphone in all likelihood. I am perfectly happy with my candy bar EnV 1.

However, I find this whole article and saga absolutely fascinating, both from the perspective of getting a glimpse at prototype hardware and from the perspective of this being a very entertaining story of human error.

There are a lot of venomous apple haters around here that seem to find their throats full of bile any time they hear the word "Apple" or see one. These people must have a hard time going to farmer's markets or driving through country roads past orchards.

However, regarding those saying it should be sold to a competitor... That would be a crystal clear violation of the law and would probably get Gizmodo utterly annihilated by Apple's Legion of Lawyers. I think the Giz is going to get their money's worth on scoop mileage while staying perfectly legal and safe from retribution taking the path they are taking. That they got Apple to openly certify the object belongs to them in order to take it back is all the better for Gizmodo.
 
http://gizmodo.com/5520438/how-apple-lost-the-next-iphone
He reached for a phone and called a lot of Apple numbers and tried to find someone who was at least willing to transfer his call to the right person, but no luck. No one took him seriously and all he got for his troubles was a ticket number.

He thought that eventually the ticket would move up high enough and that he would receive a call back, but his phone never rang.
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If apple had any support at all, they could have stopped this before it began.
 
I didn't say SELL, thats a clear violation.

GIVE on the other hand is in a perfect grey area.
 
cliche said:
just trying to find real tech news and getting pissed off with all this apple crap.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND ?
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Hate to be the one to break the news to you but Apple products are tech related.

On the front page news at this moment:

3 Apple news
16 non-Apple news
1 Apple news discussing AMD processor

Enjoy the 16 non-Apple news and stay out of the Apple ones. Just a suggestion. :rolleyes:
 
How can the guy call up Apple to expect them to say "oh yeah this is our phone please give it back". This is one of those situations where both sides are kind of stuck. The guy may well have wanted to give back the phone (I will give him the benefit of the doubt despite him selling it for $5k) but Apple can't admit that it is a prototype unless they know for sure. The customer reps probably had no clue there is even a prototype and thought it was some ploy to get them to divulge information.
 
Azhar said:
Hate to be the one to break the news to you but Apple products are tech related.

On the front page news at this moment:

3 Apple news
16 non-Apple news
1 Apple news discussing AMD processor

Enjoy the 16 non-Apple news and stay out of the Apple ones. Just a suggestion. :rolleyes:
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I meant other tech news, besides apple. Why is this difficult for some people to understand ? Is it wrong to want to rwad about other stuff on H ? or even query it without having the Spanish Inquisition on my case when another opinion is uttered ?

Anyway I gave up debating on the net about decade ago. Bye
 
Azhar said:
Hate to be the one to break the news to you but Apple products are tech related.

On the front page news at this moment:

3 Apple news
16 non-Apple news
1 Apple news discussing AMD processor

Enjoy the 16 non-Apple news and stay out of the Apple ones. Just a suggestion. :rolleyes:
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Ah Azhar - can always rely on you can't I
 
bsoft said:
The fact that Gawker (Gizmodo) paid $5000 for the prototype indicates that they believed it was real. And if it's real, it's obviously Apple's (Apple corporate) property. That means that Gawker is knowingly buying stolen property.
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It wasn't stolen.
 
This has to be some kind of PR stunt. There would be a much more harsh reaction from Apple if this were never meant to get out. Jobs would have gone ballistic if this were really that big of a deal to the company. And honestly...there would only be a few people who had access to a working model of this thing, and I doubt any of them were that careless to just forget it somewhere. (And also, a somewhere where Gizmodo, who wants to have apple's children, would find it.)
 
I have to say, now Google and HTC know what they are going to be up against in two months time.
 
This seems like a typical Apple PR move. Get the rumor mill going and all that...
 
This whole story is BS IMO. Apple would never let anyone get away with this. The pictures are still up and so is the youtube video.

Giz being the biggest Apple phanbois around, probably scored an exclusive.

I think Apple is doing damage control by trying to keep people interested in the next iPhone. With big phone releases coming out of HTC, Samsung etc. Apple is trying to keep the intrests high....thats it.

I do think the phone itself is real though and it looks good.
 
Lets put it this way, if Gizmodo gets invited to the Apple event and get a phone for review, the phone was a plant; if Gizmodo gets the silent treatment from Apple for anywhere from this year to, well, forever it wasn't a plant.
 
Poochie said:
I also think it's all just a big publicity stunt, including Apple's letter to Gizmodo. I read all the articles and now I feel dirty for buying into it.
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Agreed. There's really no reason why they would allow an employee to take a prototype off-campus and lose it in a bar, of all places. This reeks of a marketing stunt.
 
Bah. This is a non-story to me. If I were Apple, I would request the phone back anyway even if it were a fake just to generate a press buzz and circulate disinformation. If it is genuine then the only people who should be concerned are the companies in competition with Apple and not the consumer. It's not like it's the final product we can go buy off the shelf now is it. Not to mention it will probably change somewhat around the release date anyway.
 
Gizmodo is a cool guy, he knowingly buys stolen hardware and doesn't afraid of anything.
 
Wasn't there the exact same pictures that Gizmodo posted of the torn apart "phone" somewhere online posted in February? I think the link was in a thread on [H] about the whole fiasco...

Either way, I hope Giz gets a nice fat lawsuit on their hands, what they did to that guy (outing his name) was disgraceful.
 
MavericK96 said:
Agreed. There's really no reason why they would allow an employee to take a prototype off-campus and lose it in a bar, of all places. This reeks of a marketing stunt.
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Considering that all of their real prototypes are most likely locked up in the Apple Kingdom? I agree.
 
Tolyngee said:
Douche forgot Apple doesn't yet own the world?

Probably didn't realize the phone fell out of his pocket when his pants were down 'round his ankles...
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Apple is not even close to owning the world, even with $50 billion in the bank (Gates alone is worth more), thy only have a 15% market share in total.
 
Sly said:
It wasn't stolen.
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How is it not stolen? Clearly the person(s) who found it knew what it was, knew what he had, and knew what he could do with it. Instead of attempting to return it to the rightful owner, or turning it over to the police, they wanted to make a quick buck by selling it to willing tech sites. California law is pretty clear about this, the person who sold it is guilty of theft.
 
DerrajX21 said:
How is it not stolen? Clearly the person(s) who found it knew what it was, knew what he had, and knew what he could do with it. Instead of attempting to return it to the rightful owner, or turning it over to the police, they wanted to make a quick buck by selling it to willing tech sites. California law is pretty clear about this, the person who sold it is guilty of theft.
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He made multiple attempts to return it. But yea, he should have totally turned it into the State Lost and Found.
 
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