“The father of Gray Powell, the Apple engineer who reportedly lost a prototype of the iPhone 4G, says his son was reeling following the incident,” Greg Sandoval reports for CNET. “‘Of course he was devastated,’ Robert Powell told CNET in a phone interview Wednesday. ‘He loves the company.'”
“Gray Powell, 27, finds himself in the middle of media frenzy after losing a handset that appears to be a next-generation iPhone, a device that has yet to be released or even acknowledged by Apple Last month, Gray Powell visited the Gourmet Haus Staudt in Redwood City, Calif., to celebrate his birthday and apparently forgot the prototype at the bar,” Sandoval reports. “A person who has yet to be identified picked up the phone [and eventually it was sold to Gizmodo for $5,000].”
Sandoval reports, “Robert Powell had strong opinions about the person who found the phone ‘The bottom line is the guy stole the phone,’ he said. ‘The guy’s a thief.'”
Sandoval asked, “”Is Gray Powell in jeopardy of losing his job? ‘I think he’ll be okay,’ said Robert Powell. ‘He’s good at what he does. He’s a hard worker.'”
Full article here.
Chrissy1:
Starbucks special today : snapdragon?
@ Jim TIV
Frankly I’m not sure what the angle is here. What I do know is that for an Apple engineer with a MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, and some other accounts I dug up, there is not very much information on Gray before this incident. And there’s a lot of very vague info, like the way his LinkedIn begins…
“Started my career in high school, providing tech support for a startup ISP in my rural hometown.”
What company? What town? Why would you not put this on your resume?
So you’re saying that because of this he instantly made all those account private? Well, I guess that’s possible. But the Google Cache is above such measures, and it yields nothing. There are no images on his Flickr aside from hundreds of Favorites.
This just doesn’t seem like a real person.
But whatever Apple’s motivation is here I don’t know.
Mac-nugget – “So in essence, it could affect iPhone sales dramatically from here to the date of release.”
People are saying this is dumb for Apple because then people will hold of buying iPhones for a couple of months… Well, boo hoo. Apple is not having any problem at all selling iPhones. This story would hardly cause a blip, and in the end it would be nothing, because those people are just going to end up buying new iPhones anyway. The only real minus would be if folks were seriously unimpressed with the new model, and that hasn’t happened.
I remain skeptical. Who I’d really like to hear from, if he exists, is Gray.
Suck it chrissyasswipe1! You as an apple short are taking it up the anal canal
Oops… sorry for the double post, I thought the first one hadn’t gone through. The second one if the correct one.
@ X
HAHAHAHA!!!
What? Sorry honey, Apple long since about $9. Try reading.
The Dick could have made more money by doing the right thing. He would have made more than $ 5000 doing appearances and interviews and been able to feel proud of himself instead of hiding out and worrying about his his identity and lack of character being exposed to the world.
Since our contract with ATT is coming to a close this summer, my wife and I are very interested in the 4th gen phone.
I wish Grey the best.
MW: Peace.
ChrissyOne:
Who the he’ll are you, to want to see his birth certificate or hear from him? Are you so head swollen that you think you are entitled to anyones private ” verifications”?
@ Buster
It really is like that down here. Some folks have not come to terms with the fact that they still will never be able to accept O as the president, because no matter how many times they see a birth certificate, he’ll still be black.
The guy obviously is an idiot, but the Gizmodo scum bags publishing his name is disgusting, lowlifes.
I’ll never go to this $hit site again, as long as this as$hole is there.
@ I’m so important
Looks like someone forgot his sense of humor in bed today.
It’s HELL, not HE’LL, but thanks, now I know you’re on an iPhone. >.<
A lot of assumption here this iPhone loss is a big problem for Apple. No one outside of Apple knows how the inner circle has reacted/responded to the employees involved.
When the dust settles all that remains are some chagrined employees, and a heap of free publicity, acquired in a very short period of time. I can see the smirk on Job’s face now.
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Gizmodo – aka bottom feeder.
I was assuming that C1 was making a parody: saying she won’t believe that this is Gray’s dad unless she sees a birth certificate.
ChrissyOne I see your an uncompastionate bottom feeding doucebag just like giz, low lifes of the same stock stick togather, correct.
I am sure that your smug responses are of delibarate attention seeking need to make yourself feel special due to some pyscological disconnect at seeing others mistakes.
Karma is very real and if anyone needs a shock to place them on the path of compassion and understanding for another fellow human being you sure fit the bill for a total reset.
You deserve whatever you get and I can only hope you learn from it after you wake up.
ChrissyOne:
Maybe you really had the starbucks special breeze is talking about.
And you are wrong again about the iPhone, I’m on an iPad.
So, show me yours to qualify your superiority.
Great. So now CNET must be a part of this grand conspiracy to dupe the public by making up this story about that engineer’s dad’s statement.
Or may the dad is part of this conspiracy and duped CNET.
Or maybe Gray came home, played it up for his dad, then went to his bedroom and laughed his butt off.
I’m so torn on this. I mean… any of these scenarios is soooo much more plausible that someone getting drunk and leaving a cellphone behind in a bar. Yeah… who would EVER think that could happen?
In ChrissyOne’s defense, this story is so bizarre, that if we eventually fined out it was some sort massive hoax or an Apple marketing gimmick, will anyone be surprised?
Can’t you people read? Or did you never learn anything about satire?
“ChrissyOne I see your an uncompastionate…”
Your. Well done, good start.
“…bottom feeding doucebag just like giz, low lifes of the same stock stick togather, correct.”
Yep, we’re bother togather on that. Wow, your typing is worse than mine!
“I am sure that your smug responses are of delibarate attention seeking need to make yourself feel special due to some pyscological disconnect at seeing others mistakes. “
No, it’s because I’m a smarmy bitch. Shows what you know.
“Karma is very real and if anyone needs a shock to place them on the path of compassion and understanding for another fellow human being you sure fit the bill for a total reset.”
Well thank you, Buddha. How exactly am I not showing compassion?
“You deserve whatever you get and I can only hope you learn from it after you wake up.”
I’m about to get coffee. And let me tell you, I deserve it. What I learn from it only time will tell.
I’m so important:
Nothing like a woman’s scorn…
Lighten up, she’s just being sarcastic.
(I can only assume these anonymous attacks are coming from Apple’s PR spinners trying to reenforce their shoddy fairy tale. Nice work guys!)
@ breeze
It’s okay, he hasn’t learned about satire or wit yet. Life’s hard in the 4th grade.
“So, show me yours to qualify your superiority”
I mean seriously… he thinks his iPad makes him superior. >.<
So much political theater and corporate intrigue.
Last night Letterman’s top ten list was “Top ten excuses from the Apple engineer that lost the iPhone prototype”. Introducing the bit, Letterman deadpanned “who really cares?”..
WE DO Dave, WE DO!
OK ChrissyOne “They should ask for a note from his mom too, just so he can ride the bus by himself. Maybe he could even ride in the back.”
Think he is about to get run over by the Apple Bus.
If he is real skilled in the art of people politics, maybe he will turn this into a positive, but it will take guts & bravado without being a obnoxious.
I wish him well and hope Gray makes it.
Reward offered to anyone who returns my iGlasses
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