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http://gizmodo.com/5520471/the-tale-of-apples-next-iphone




http://gizmodo.com/5520438/how-apple-lost-the-next-iphone

I am really surprised that it has taken this long to have a thread created about this.

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.

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.

Screw the iPhone, Steve says no porn!

It looks pretty neat though. I never really liked the rounded look before.

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.

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.

.

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.

There's a link in the OP about Apple asking for it back.

I thought Gizmodo paid $5000 for the phone from the person who found it.

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

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.

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..

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

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.

Click to expand...

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...

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...

I hope it is out by July. I'm switching to an iPhone and I want that one!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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Good.

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

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.

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

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.

Scott Adam's (ie, Dilbert) tackles the lost iPhone in his comic - unpublished, unfortunately, but still funny.

Guess who plays the part of the Apple engineer?

http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/thatlost4gphone/

I laughed.

love the pointy haired boss' face in the last panel

ha!

I love the first comic. "That's a coincidence because I sell other people's belongings!"

Apple's being a dick.. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20003446-37.html

Shit, hardcore. How can Apple get police to break state and federal laws like that? Scary.

The Mex said:

Shit, hardcore. How can Apple get police to break state and federal laws like that? Scary.

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Who cares. It's not like they were uncovering some great conspiracy. They bought a fucking stolen phone and wrote a review of it to make money. Not to right some great injustice. This is stupid.

"we make magical products, but we still want you all to know humanity doesn't DESERVE them. It deserves to be SHIT UPON. Apple, HARD CORE"?

---------- Post added at 12:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:18 AM ----------

Shakey;376968][QUOTE=The Mex said:

Shit, hardcore. How can Apple get police to break state and federal laws like that? Scary.

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Who cares. It's not like they were uncovering some great conspiracy. They bought a fucking stolen phone and wrote a review of it to make money. Not to right some great injustice. This is stupid.[/QUOTE]

good to know you're cool with laws being broken "cause it's stupid."

Sounds to me like a judge that thinks the internet is a "series of tubes"...

Xiaofang Nuren said:

"we make magical products, but we still want you all to know humanity doesn't DESERVE them. It deserves to be SHIT UPON. Apple, HARD CORE"?

---------- Post added at 12:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:18 AM ----------

Shakey;376968][QUOTE=The Mex said:

Shit, hardcore. How can Apple get police to break state and federal laws like that? Scary.

Click to expand...

Who cares. It's not like they were uncovering some great conspiracy. They bought a fucking stolen phone and wrote a review of it to make money. Not to right some great injustice. This is stupid.

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good to know you're cool with laws being broken "cause it's stupid."[/QUOTE]

And you're OK with laws being broken so someone can make a buck? I'm sorry that I have no sympathy for people who take advantage of laws meant to protect journalists. They bought a stolen phone and took pictures of it.

Don't forget they also bragged about the fact that they were able to buy the missing iPhone. There is very clear evidence that they committed a crime.

I don't think they should have the rights granted to journalists to protect them when they themselves have ZERO journalistic integrity.

cnet said:

unless, in some cases, the journalists themselves committed the crime

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There's more on the story.. may not have been Jobs that called the cops, looks like it was the guy that lost it in the first place.. also, there is a difference between paying for the phone and paying for the story, in this case an exclusive find, what technogeek wouldn't hand out cash for an exclusive peek at a gadget?

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010...arrant-sieze-gizmodo-editors-pcs-iphone-leak/

\"If there is any case submitted to a prosecutor's office for review, it would be to our office,\" he said, adding that \"there presently is no case submitted to our office.\"

Wagstaff wasn't familiar with all of the details of the case, but believes it was instigated not by Apple Computer but by Gray Powell, the Apple employee who reportedly misplaced the prototype phone.

\"The individual who lost the phone reported it, I think,\" he explained, adding that \"I don't think it was Jobs who brought it to us, I think it was him.\" James Berriman, the founder and CEO of digital investigations company Evidox, explained that whether criminal charges are brought through the DA's office may be determined by intent.

\"One of the elements of criminal law is that there is a mental state associated with it,\" he told FoxNews.com. \"Did they have the requisite mental state? Paying for a story is not a crime,\" he added, wondering \"Were they paying for the property, or were they paying for the story? Or were they paying for it in order to return it?\"

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Yeah, I don't think it's a totally black and white issue, I'm really uncomfortable with what the cops did, but the gawker guys pretty much screamed "We broke the law, lolawesom1111".

Right, laws were broken and that needs to be addressed (?), but come on, going into his home and seizing stuff without proper authorization? It's not like these guys had a meth lab, they paid a guy to be able take pictures of a phone. Just write them a fine or something and drop it.

Shakey said:

And you're OK with laws being broken so someone can make a buck? I'm sorry that I have no sympathy for people who take advantage of laws meant to protect journalists. They bought a stolen phone and took pictures of it.

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No, that's actually the opposite of my point. If a civillian breaks the law, law enforcement is not suddenly granted a "well he did it first so we can too" card.

turn for the worst for Gizmodo
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8645884.stm

What are you guys talking about?

If the police are made aware of a crime, and if the state's attorney can show the judge that valuable evidence is in a given residence and on computers, then a search warrant can be issued to secure that evidence. No notice is given, of course, because such evidence might go missing if notice was served prior to the search.

Journalists are not immune to search warrants. They are immune to certain types of searches under _very_ specific rules in order to protect them and their sources from undue pressure.

However, when it's clear that a journalist HAS committed a crime, and in fact has published their crime, a judge is more likely than not going to issue a search warrant.

Just because they are journalists does not mean that they are immune from prosecution - in that case I might as well become a journalist, and break into Apple's labs, then when I'm caught say, "Oh, hey, I'm a journalist so you can't, you know, actually prosecute me for this."

There are some very narrow allowances made for illegal activities, such as in whistleblower cases (ie, journalists handling - but not paying for - corporate trade secrets, IP, etc) where there is a common good that will be served by making these things public.

But in this case, neither of these journalistic protections apply, even if you claim gawker/gizmodo have journalist rights. Firstly, they are committing a crime. Period. Second, there is no common public good served by disclosing this information.

So yes, of course they are going to cry foul when they are searched and _claim_ that the search is illegal. And of course the various organizations that support journalism are going to go on record that this is a bad thing. But that doesn't make either of them right.

The real worry that these organizations have is that this case may actually tighten down the standards journalists can now work under. If anything they should be angry with Gawker for forcing this open for legal scrutiny again.

But it doesn't matter.

At the end of the day, they broke the law, and they will pay the price. They are not immune to search and seizure and prosecution from criminal acts.

hmmm...

this one is interesting.

What about the story that the person tried to return it to Apple first but was told that it wasn't their property?

If this is the case, then I feel that there can be no crime, as the person who originally found it attempted to return it. After that attempt failed, the property became hers.

After the property became hers, then there is not theft. What there is is a person with a very strange item that is very very interesting. If it is an Apple product, then there is a story (why did they not take it back), since Apple says it is not their product it means there is a story there that may not just be "OMG IPHONE 4" it could be "is this some home-made iPhone?" or "ITS ALIENS!!!" (you never know)

This also brings into question whether the property itself is the concern. On an entertainment level, people recieve leaks about the contents of a movie or a tv show, are they breaking the law by releasing that information?

On an industrial level...its a bit different. I heard a story once about some guys working at an aerospace firm who noticed that some people visiting from a competing aerospace firm left some very sensitive data. They weren't sure what to do with it so they sat on it for a couple days. When they finally decided that it would be stupid to try and use this information they went to their boss. They were fired immediately for even going so far as to sit on it.

Necronic said:

hmmm...

this one is interesting.

What about the story that the person tried to return it to Apple first but was told that it wasn't their property?

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This is akin to saying, "We purchased the stolen Mona Lisa, and knew it belonged to the lourve. We called their phone, got their receptionist who said, "I can't help you", and so we figured it was ours to keep."

That defense simply won't fly in court. I'd be very surprised if they attempted to plead not guilty based on that. The phone was clearly an unreleased Apple prototype, otherwise they wouldn't have paid for it. The fact that they paid for it, and that they published information on it shows they knew exactly what it was and who it belonged to.

I'm not sure what type of defense they might try to make, but there's no law that says, "As long as you make some perfunctory attempts to return property that isn't yours, you can keep it." I don't know where people get this idea from, but it's simply not true. There is no "finder's keepers" except under very limited circumstances, which certainly do not cover this scenario.

Regardless, the whole reason the computers were seized is to find out the identity of the person that sold the item to gawker. While Gawker purchased stolen property illegally, the person who sold it is in much hotter water.

* - Replace "stolen" with "lost" if it makes you feel better. Even if it was found, it still is not within the rights of the finder to sell it, nor gawker to buy it knowing what it was.

It will fly if its true and can be proven.

Necronic said:

It will fly if its true and can be proven.

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Oh? Please quote the law and/or case law. It's a very common misconception, so I'm very interested to see why people think there's a legal basis for this.

EFF Rep said:

"If there was some offence here it is not apparent what it is", she said.

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THEY BOUGHT STOLEN PROPERTY AND PUBLISHED A STORY BRAGGING HOW THEY BOUGHT IT FROM SOMEONE WHO "FOUND" IT!

Jesus Christ people are stupid about this.

also Hope the story was worth it for Gizmodo as they can pretty much kiss their press invites to Apple events good bye. They get to now be the half-rate secondary source with apple like they are with the other 90% of their content.

Matt² said:

http://gizmodo.com/5524843/police-seize-jason-chens-computers

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Looks like that code does not cover him. All it does is prevent warrants being issued for evidence carried by reporters/journalists/news organizations who have evidence on a source for a story/article/report. In other words, if they ONLY have evidence that can be used to testify against a source (not themselves) they used for their publication, then they cannot be forced to testify, nor can they be searched or their property be seized.

It certainly does NOT cover them if they themselves are accused of committing the crime.

"adjudged in contempt" - insofar as I can tell it means that they cannot be given a search warrant just because they refuse to testify. Only in that very limited circumstance can they be protected from search and siezure.

Here are the sections referenced:

When, for what, on whom search warrants can be executed against:
http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/1524.html

Exemption - items that cannot be searched for:
http://www.citmedialaw.org/california-evidence-code-sec-1070

But I have to admit, Gawker is playing the public very nicely. They really do have a lot of people convinced that journalists are above the law and immune to prosecution from criminal acts.

Here are the sections Gawkers is specifically NOT referencing:

I'd like to see gawker post california penal code 487, defining Grand Theft:
http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/487.html

Grand theft is theft committed in any of the following cases:
(a) When the money, labor, or real or personal property taken is
of a value exceeding four hundred dollars ($400) except as provided
in subdivision (b).
(b) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), grand theft is committed in
any of the following cases:

...
(c) When the property is taken from the person of another.

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Note that the property taken does not have any special requirements - you don't have to take the property off a person in order to constitute theft. Picking an abandoned item off the ground can constituted theft. However, we get a more precise definition of theft on coded 484:

http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/PEN/3/1/13/5/s484

(a)Every person who shall feloniously steal, take, carry, lead, or drive away the personal property of another, or who shall fraudulently appropriate property which has been entrusted to him or her, or who shall knowingly and designedly, by any false or fraudulent representation or pretense, defraud any other person of money, labor or real or personal property, or who causes or procures others to report falsely of his or her wealth or mercantile character and by thus imposing upon any person, obtains credit and thereby fraudulently gets or obtains possession of money, or property or obtains the labor or service of another, is guilty of theft.

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This is why it is unlikely that they will attempt a "finder's keeper's" defense - because there is no such defense - and even if there was such a defense it wouldn't apply to for gawker. They took someone else's property from another person (487c above) - in other words they committed grand theft by buying property from someone whom they knew did not own the property in question.

That's all there is to it. They cannot claim that they had a reasonable belief that the property belonged to the seller. They paid $5,000 for an object that will eventually sell legitimately on the market for $600 with no contract. They have published all this information. There is a solid line that divides the "Yes, the object belonged to the seller" and "No, the object did not belong to the seller" and by their actions they proved they knew which side of the line they were on when the purchased the illegally obtained property.

It's going to be an open and shut case, and Gawker can't really even hope for a nice plea bargain in exchange for testifying against the person that obtained the property in the first place. The DA will want to demonstrate that media corporations are not allowed to commit grand theft for the purposes of a story, especially in a tech rich state such as California where trade secrets and IP are one of their biggest exports.

I'm with the First Lady on this one, I think. It seemed like a pretty dickish thing to have done in the first place. I don't wish ill-will on the gawker folks but they may have made a mistake here...