Apple's 4g iPhone is real, and lost:

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E

Element 117

Hylian said:
I am really surprised that it has taken this long to have a thread created about this.
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no one here is a real apple fanboy, myself excluded, and I had a hole put in my chest the other day so ive been slow.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
As I said to my Apple friend, it is too coincidental to me that a PROTOTYPE is just left somewhere where a *gasp* Gizmodo employee would "pick it up" and do a review.

I mean, come on! First an employee with a lot of clearance would have to take the thing on a walkabout, then they'd have to LEAVE IT at a coffee shop, then a Gizmodo employee would "accidentally" find someone's iPhone (which they said looks the same on the outside) and then instead of turning it in or trying to find the owner they disassemble it and post a review online.

Does this or does this not sound fishy as hell and a ploy to gather publicity? I think it's all a stunt.
 
E

Element 117

i seriously considered it being a decoy tactic, but why bother? Also, Apple doesnt NEED to leak products for hype. People freak out by the ton when their webstore goes offline for a few minutes. They have plenty of hype machine bloggers at the ready, really.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
True, but we ALL know drama brings more eyes to something than a publicity blitz.

It's just all too coincidental to me. I mean, wouldn't it be considered stealing? So why isn't Apple pressing charges?

---------- Post added at 01:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:51 PM ----------

Hmm. I hadn't read the part about asking for it back.

And Gizmodo didn't find it. Someone else did and sold it to them when they realized what they had.


This may very well be real, then.
 
E

Element 117

just because they havent yet doesnt mean they aren't considering it, though they'd come out looking like more of an asshole type company than they already are seen as.
 
Covar

Covar

I'd be ok if apple sued the shirts off Gawkers back. They deliberately bought merchandise they knew didn't belong to the seller.
 
C

Chibibar

I think the whole thing is a marketing ploy. Even the letter asking it back.

Verizon already talking about 4G so Apple is not the first.
 
E

Element 117

Dave said:
There's a link in the OP about Apple asking for it back.
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I know, I read all three articles and saw the letter, but was speaking from your point.

Also, NPR.org is talking about this as I type on Talk of The Nation..
 
strawman

strawman

Covar said:
I'd be ok if apple sued the shirts off Gawkers back. They deliberately bought merchandise they knew didn't belong to the seller.
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I'd be surprised if they didn't.

Apple alleges that it was stolen. Gizmodo isn't releasing the name of the person they "purchased" it from, but Apple is, no doubt, keen to know. The only way to find that out is to file a police report, and have the police prosecute so they can get that information. Plus they have a pretty good history of legally strong arming people into giving out information on leaks. It's one of the reasons so few leaks come out of Apple these days - it's not because they run a tight ship, but because they vigorously pursued those leaks a decade ago, and now people are pretty reluctant to do that.

---------- Post added at 04:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:42 PM ----------
klew;373788][QUOTE=Chibibar said:
I think the whole thing is a marketing ploy. Even the letter asking it back.

Verizon already talking about 4G so Apple is not the first.
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I figured the name meant 4G as in 4th generation phone, not frequency spectrum[/QUOTE]

The iPhone 3G was named due to the main feature - it worked on the faster 3G networks, and was in fact the second generation iPhone. The iPhone 3GS has a faster radio, so while it's still 3G cellular, it can transfer data a bit faster than the 3G - and it's the third generation iPhone.

If they do name it the 4G, then it'll be because it runs on the 4G cellular network (assuming it does) - not because it's the fourth generation, although that will be a nice coincidence.

Apple has not been a big early adopter - and 4G networks are still in the very early stages. The original iPhone came out when 3G was available, but they chose the significantly slower edge anyway.

If they choose to support 4G, which I and most others suspect they will, it'll be mainly to relieve congestion on AT&T's network. Since your data will take less time to transmit at faster speeds it takes less airtime, allowing more people to share the same cellular bandwidth.

I don't know that they'll release it on Verizon yet though. I think they had to bend AT&T over a barrel to get them to agree to an unlimited $30/mo iPad data plan, and I suspect the carrot was longer exclusivity for the iPhone.

Either way - I've got a 3GS and I'm going to have a hard time resisting the upgrade if they have improved it significantly...
 
Espy

Espy

That is one badass phone. I don't want to pay for the internet on it but... damn. It's gonna be hard not getting that. If they allow Verizon in on it I just might...
 
SpecialKO

SpecialKO

I'm still on contract until December, so I'll come back to the question then. :p

Ideally, I would like to be able to pick an iPhone which has flash/multi-tasking as a mature feature (i.e. doesn't suck at it), use it on Verizon (so I get reliable coverage) and be able to use voice/(4G)data at the same time.

Probably not going to happen though.
 
klew

klew

First Lady Puffinstuff said:
The iPhone 3G was named due to the main feature - it worked on the faster 3G networks, and was in fact the second generation iPhone. The iPhone 3GS has a faster radio, so while it's still 3G cellular, it can transfer data a bit faster than the 3G - and it's the third generation iPhone.
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We know this, the 3G name was also beneficial in making people think the iterations were farther along, like the second Xbox being named the 360, because the 3 would subliminally imply it is equivalent to the soon-to-be-released PlayStation 3. Previously, iPods were casually named by generation (e.g., "iPod 5G with video") so people could tell them apart quicker than memorizing model numbers.
 
H

Hyimi

Looks like Gizmodo named the guy from Apple who lost the phone, 27 year old Gary Powell who will most likely have a very hard time finding work after this one.

Link:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/041910-iphone-gizmodo-backstory.html?fsrc=netflash-rss

Apparently Gary had a little too much to drink when he left it on the bar stool before going home. Gizmodo paid five grand for what was basically stolen property. According to the article someone picked it up and contacted Gizmodo to sell it. Yeah, I can definitely see some kind of lawsuit over this one.
 
SpecialKO

SpecialKO

Hyimi said:
Looks like Gizmodo named the guy from Apple who lost the phone, 27 year old Gary Powell who will most likely have a very hard time finding work after this one.

Link:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/041910-iphone-gizmodo-backstory.html?fsrc=netflash-rss

Apparently Gary had a little too much to drink when he left it on the bar stool before going home. Gizmodo paid five grand for what was basically stolen property. According to the article someone picked it up and contacted Gizmodo to sell it. Yeah, I can definitely see some kind of lawsuit over this one.
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You know, if I were Apple, I would get the court to force Gizmodo to turn over their info on the finder in exchange for the whole "knowingly buying stolen property thing" as a "thank you" for contacting Apple to return the phone. Gizmodo gets publicly warned, and Apple gets the guy who sold their prototype without trying to return it first.
 
Covar

Covar

Also Gizmodo has this thing and a huge exclusive and can't even be bothered to identify what cell radio is in it. For all the advantages blogs have they certainly also do a lot to prove arrogant traditional journalists right.
 
strawman

strawman

Covar said:
Also Gizmodo has this thing and a huge exclusive and can't even be bothered to identify what cell radio is in it. For all the advantages blogs have they certainly also do a lot to prove arrogant traditional journalists right.
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They may not be able to tell. Chances are good it's a custom packaged cellular chipset, so they can't figure it out with decapping it (and chances are good they didn't even remove the EMI shield from the PCB for the pictures - this isn't a teardown report, merely a simple disassembly).

Since the phone was remotely wiped by Apple, they can't even start it up and go to settings to check out the modem info.

If they sent it to a real reverse engineering lab, or got it before it was wiped, they might have had a chance, but a lot of these test would be destructive.

I don't think it matters, though. Wait for the day after the official release and we'll have all the specs and a nice teardown report.
 
Shakey

Shakey

Looks like it may become a criminal case:
Under a California law dating back to 1872, any person who finds lost property and knows who the owner is likely to be but \"appropriates such property to his own use\" is guilty of theft. If the value of the property exceeds $400, more serious charges of grand theft can be filed. In addition, a second state law says that any person who knowingly receives property that has been obtained illegally can be imprisoned for up to one year.
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Covar

Covar

Good.

They new what they were doing was wrong and did it anyway for the money they could get running their exclusive.
 
Hylian

Hylian

What Gizmodo did was a gray area. Now as far as the possible law suit hey can protest by saying that they did not know for sure the phone was legitimate. They bought it without knowing so they can use that to help defend them self. Now the man who sold it to Gizmodo was definitely in the wrong and if anyone should get in trouble he should. now granted he did try to call Apple who didnt believe him but he obviously did not try that hard to persuade them or even try to hard to find another means of returning it.
 
Shakey

Shakey

Gizmodo knew they were buying something they had no right to buy. There is no gray area when you are offered a prototype phone from an incredibly secretive company for $5,000.00
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
The question as I understand it is who exactly are they going to charge? I hear they are going to claim journalistic license to protect the guy who sold it to them and they can claim not to know who did the actual buying.

That's where it gets murky and unless Apple goes all out I don't see anything happening. It's just too much time/money for a state/municipal law enforcement group to continue.
 
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