“”My inbox is chockablock with messages from those who think Apple initiated this,” writes Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, who has been one of Apple’s biggest defenders throughout the affair… ‘This is a criminal investigation, not a civil lawsuit,’ he writes. ‘Apple gets to decide whether to file civil litigation. The San Mateo district attorney gets to decide whether to launch a criminal investigation. We don’t know yet whether Apple has been in contact with the DA, but, why wouldn’t they? They can tell the DA what happened. They can’t order the DA what to do.'”
Elmer-DeWitt reports, “Which leaves open the question of whether Apple ever asked the authorities to look into the matter.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: All very interesting, but what we really want to find out is who found the iPhone, who removed it from the bar, and sold it to Gizmodo for $5,000? And, was it one person who did all three things?
What if Apple did loose the phone on purpose?
Could it be a decoy, something that other companies would try to copy, then Apple would release totally different design?
At the same time, they would frame one sacrificial sheep, some blogger that is offering a reward for unreleased products, and then make an example out of him?
This all would teach employees and bloggers not to engage in this kind of activity. One smart “lost” iPhone and so much gain.
1. publicity
2. lesson for employees
3. lesson for bloggers
4. fake design for others to copy
macman
Why would Apple take responsibility of the screw-up ?? Because of their secrecy? If you are a mac user, you won’t need more than two brain cells to know that the new iPhone upgrade will be release between June and July, the new iPod Touch between September and October, the new iMac, almost the same time . New desktop Mac Pros, around July and the laptops around this month. With some exceptions, they follow their upgrade cycles to the letter annually. What we cannot predict is when they release a new hardware that nobody knows about and Apple under Steve Jobs never talk about vaporware.
Macman, it became industrial espionage when the Chen opened the iPhone up , took some pictures and videos and published it for all the world to see. Yah, that bad. In the bigger scheme of things, if Gizmodo think they can get away with it, it would be a de facto encouragement for them to do the same thing in a bigger scale like this time, like trying to break in to Apple’s labs,Microsoft or Google just to get a story.
This is not about the First Amendment and the freedom of the press. It’s about one irresponsible company finding out that there are legal consequences in ones action.
As I posted in a previous article comment – Apple can not “control” the DA or police, but they are the victim, as such, they can decide to cooperate or not. If they decide not to cooperate (aka pursue prosecution), the DA can still take action but the defense would eat them up in court without the testimony of the victim. A judge can force Apple to appear against their will, but it would be rather silly. The police and DA would be waisting their time if Apple didn’t not want to pursue it. So in one aspect, Apple can control what the DA and police do.
@DreamTheEndless
“Gizmodo paid a source for information – just like any other news media organization would.”
Checkbook journalism is not journalism. And paying for stolen property is a felony. There are no rights that trump that.
I think Apple would be foolish to get involved. Makes them look like bullies, even if they are right. Not much profit in that. They should be grateful. They have gotten more publicity out of this incident then they would have gotten from the official 4G launch. It made all the news shows AND all the comedy shows for several days. Plus, they still will get some publicity during the launch, both for the new phone features and possibly more software details.
Grand theft phone.
Imagine how differently this might have played out had the individual who found the phone called Apple first.
I have no doubt he would have been granted a shopping spree in any Apple store. Why do you suppose he rejected that idea?
Personally, I would have arranged to meet with Steve Jobs to exchange the phone for a job at Apple.
But no, this person isn’t thinking about their future, and they had plenty of time to consider their options, and instead they’re only concern was to try and remain anonymous throughout the transaction.
Is that how the mind of a thief works? Inquiring minds want to know. This person knew the moment they snatched the phone, and quickly shoved it in their pocket, what they were holding because Gray had it out and may have made a call or two, all within earshot of the person who never took his eyes off it.
A crime of opportunity was in the making. I call it a crime because the this person witnessed Gray get up and walk away from the phone, afterwhich he immediately snatched the phone and left the bar with an item they thought might be worth at least fifty-bucks to someone.
How long was it before they realized that this iPhone looks very different from any iPhone they’d
ever seen before?
This is the point at which this whole affair turned crimminal. In this moment, they might have even decided the phone might be worth a whole lot more than fifty-bucks,
perhaps as much as five-hundred!
How in the world did this idiot find Gizmodo, and who turned this affair into a financial transaction?
Before any money would change hands, Chen would have to convince his publisher he was in possession of something worth its weight in gold, perhaps twice that. But between them they were smart enough to know they were playing with fire.
Did these clowns even consider that they could have leveraged the return of the phone to Apple for an exclusive? Imagine how much mileage they could gotten out of this exchange, were they not being evil from the get-go.
Just like the thieves, they had every opportunity to do the right thing, but unfortunately the minds at Gawker aren’t wired that way; their hatred of Apple blinded them to even greater opportunities in the news.
Just as Denton has said already, they’re not journalists, they MAKE the news, not report it. They will use anything and everyone at their disposal to spin a story that will have the greatest impact on their
readership. To them, there is no right or wrong, just how big a stink can they make.
Now is the time for subpoenas. Waste not another day to get everyone on record, especially the conversations between Chen and upper managment at Gawker.
Wow, this story could have turned out so much different if a scurrilous rat hadn’t been involved.
Ooh, it just occurs to me, what if Gray was with a girl he met that very evening and they were sharing shots and beers. Perhaps when her hands weren’t on his phone they were on his pecker?
What if he got up to go to the bathroom, she simply walked out with his phone?
That is a detail that wouldn’t surface until Gray finally admits to it. I know it’s a specious but, what if Chen had a relationship with the person who surfaced with Gray’s phone?
That’s starting to sound like a corporate espionage novel that’s sure to be spun into a story on Law & Order.
When you take something that is not yours willfully, that’s called “stealing.”
When you buy something that you know (or presume) is stolen, that’s called “receiving stolen goods.”
When you plaster your website with the ill-gotten-goods (as a whole or dismantled), that’s called “stupidity.”
@Galloway
“Checkbook journalism is not journalism. And paying for stolen property is a felony. There are no rights that trump that.”
1. These days, checkbook journalism is standard journalism.
2. As I stated, Gizmodo didn’t care about the “property.” They announced almost immediately that they would hand it over to the owner as soon as the owner came forward and asked for it, and that’s exactly what they did. These are not the actions of a fence. They payed for access to the information; access to the device that was the heart of the biggest technology “scoop” ever.
—————————————————–
@G4Dualie
Where to begin….
“Grand theft phone.”
– nope
“Imagine how differently this might have played out had the individual who found the phone called Apple first.”
– He did. You should try reading the actual stories before commenting on them.
“I have no doubt he would have been granted a shopping spree in any Apple store.”
– Nope – Apple ignored him.
“But no, this person isn’t thinking about their future, and they had plenty of time to consider their options, and instead they’re only concern was to try and remain anonymous throughout the transaction.”
– His only concern was getting the phone back to its owner. He tried for weeks. He only went to the press when he ran into a dead end repeatedly while trying to give it back to Apple.
“Blah blah blah”
– Nope – go read the articles….
“A crime of opportunity was in the making. I call it a crime because the this person witnessed Gray get up and walk away from the phone, afterwhich he immediately snatched the phone and left the bar with an item they thought might be worth at least fifty-bucks to someone.”
– What? You’re a nutjob. You are completely inventing what happened instead of just reading the actual account of the events…
“More blah blah blah”
– I’m not going to even bother. You can easily find the answers to your questions by reading the firsthand accounts of the people involved. You’d obviously rather just make up your own story instead.
“Just like the thieves, they had every opportunity to do the right thing, but unfortunately the minds at Gawker aren’t wired that way; their hatred of Apple blinded them to even greater opportunities in the news.”
– Oh my god, their “hatred of Apple?” Yeah, that’s the one thing that Gizmodo is known for…. Are you kidding? Giz is the biggest group of fanboys on the planet. They LOOOOOVE Apple.
“Even more blah blah blah…”
– Dude – you are so totally crazy…
“Ooh, it just occurs to me, what if Gray was with a girl he met that very evening and they were sharing shots and beers. Perhaps when her hands weren’t on his phone they were on his pecker?
What if he got up to go to the bathroom, she simply walked out with his phone?
That is a detail that wouldn’t surface until Gray finally admits to it.”
– There you go inventing even more details – what a whack job.
“I know it’s a specious but, what if Chen had a relationship with the person who surfaced with Gray’s phone?”
– Chen’s wife would probably object.
“That’s starting to sound like a corporate espionage novel that’s sure to be spun into a story on Law & Order.”
– No, too crazy for television. Perhaps some mental health professionals would be interested in hearing your stories though.
Does anybody else feel that DreamTheEndless works for Gawker?
As we say in Yorkshire, “There’s a hare in the turnips!”
@DreamTheEndless
“1. These days, checkbook journalism is standard journalism.”
That’s entirely false. Ask any real journalist, checkbook journalism is ethically fishy and avoided where at all possible. Any real journalist would have gone to their legal department and been told unequivocally to NOT BUY THE STOLEN iPHONE.
@ DreamTheEndless
.sdrawkcab os ti evah uoy ¿ hcum lanoisuled
@DreamTheEndless:
You’re wrong. Gizmodo paid to receive a stolen iPhone. Period. If all Gizmodo wanted was info, it could have paid the guy who found the phone to provide it with photos, specs, etc. Different story then.
Gizmodo paid to get their hands on a prototype iPhone so they could examine it, tear it apart, etc., and make money off of publishing their findings. Just because they claim to be journalists does not exempt them from the law regarding stolen property. In addition, Gizmodo, being in California and operating in very close proximity with the tech industry and Apple in particular, certainly should have known there are statutes regarding trade secrets, etc.
The assertion that Apple brought this on itself because Apple wants to keep its products secret is ridiculous. Apple has every right to want to keep its upcoming products hidden until it chooses to release them. Just the same way that others have the right to try to get information on the new products, PROVIDED THEY DON’T BREAK THE LAW IN DOING SO.
Right… We all know that corporations (especially the great Apple) are incapable of influencing government officials.
Lmao.
Wake up.
@Right
What’s your point? If someone steals something from you, you call the cops. Is Apple not allowed to do this? How is calling the cops (if they did) influencing government officials?
@endless
hit a nerve didn’t I?
Curious why you singled me out? I read the stories in question and I’d rank them all right there with mine.
We won’t know the facts until the gavel seals the case.
This place is full of Sea Lawyers making judgements about the players involved, so I thought I’d another layer of bullshit to the mix. So what, douche bag?
At the very least, I thought some of the knuckleheads around here might find it entertaining. Not you though, Dreamtheendless instead calls me crazy in ten different ways, because why? Because I choose to invent a plausible explanation, like everyone else?
If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were personally involved in this fiasco. Who else would react in the manner you did if they weren’t involved on some level? Perhaps you’re related to Chen? Maybe you are Chen! Maybe you stole the phone?
Either way, I don’t give a fuck who you are because, unlike you, I don’t take myself so seriously!
I’m having fun with this, and you’re not, dreamer.
@G4Dualie
Make the upgrade, man. We’re on Intel now. At least buy a used G5
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@ MacMan: “Personally, I think Apple should take responsibility for the screw up and just let it go. In the bigger scheme of things, it won’t mean anything after June 2010…”
Even if you are right (and I don’t think you are), it’s not in Apple’s hands. The DA gets to decide if the case should proceed or not proceed.
Gizmodo: I can haz prototype‽
As much as I love all things Apple — I really could not care less about any of this.
And I do think it makes Apple look bad. Yeah, there’s a distinction between civil and criminal litigation, but we are talking about a $250 billion company and a local police department of what, a few hundred officers? Apple can buy as many San Mateo DAs as I can buy iPads with my 2001 investment in Apple. Apple could have started this prosecution, and they could — and should — stop it.
Why should they stop it? Because nobody cares. Because this is VICTIMLESS CRIME. Because it makes Apple look as bad as — yes, I’ll say it — the RIA looked going after college kids for sharing music.
Police have better things to do, and we as a society have better things to think about.
I read where the individual who found the phone allegedly called Apple to report he found the phone and was supposedly given a case number by Apple. Really?
Why this call didn’t set off any alarms at Apple is beyond the pale? Are highly classified prototypes exempt from the kind of tracking regular iPhone consumers enjoy?
Ten days into this fiasco, I’m sure Apple employees were hating their jobs, and Gray because the ol’ man was on a tear. Supposedly, Apple knew an iPhone was reportedly found but apparently couldn’t connect the dots, or didn’t think to consider someone finding a prototype would bother to notify Apple. In either case, this was an epic systemic failure on Apple’s part.
Does Apple really receive so many calls regarding found phones, that this particular report would have gotten lost in the minutia?
Why didn’t Apple realize that ANYONE who reported finding an iPhone, might be a person of interest? I would think the moment Apple was alerted that a prototype was missing, they would check the logs to see if someone reported finding the phone, especially on or near the date the phone went missing.
Wouldn’t the Apple employee who took the call, have a select set of questions asking for a detailed description of the device? The caller had access to the software and could have easily been directed to the system settings for closer inspection of its nomenclature, the model, and the owner, which clearly would have set off the alarms. Proactive. Gray’s name should have been in the system as being in possession of classified material.
Perhaps Gray didn’t report the phone missing right away, so Apple didn’t realize it had a monumental problem on their hands. But I would think, even a few days after the phone was reported missing, Apple’s tenacious internal security team would have exhausted all efforts to ferret out all and any evidence available.
Wouldn’t a prototype, like this phone, be electronically monitored by the lab who assigned the phone to Gray? Would Gray have to check in each day with his prototype?
Wouldn’t this phone have an internally assigned serial number for tracking purposes? And wouldn’t this phone be monitored in a manner similar to the system on Mobile Me?
According to Gizmodo, they had an opportunity to witness the 4G phone’s screen rez and reported, “Improved display. It’s unclear if it’s the 960×460 display thrown around before—it certainly looks like it, with the “Connect to iTunes” screen displaying much higher resolution than on a 3GS.”
They had access to the phone’s software and Chen said as much, so I wonder how long after the phone was misappropriated, did Gizmodo get their hands on it? It had to have been almost immediately, or until such time Gray finally told Apple he lost the phone, after which it would have been wiped remotely.
When I think of the thirty-days that passed before Apple finally got around to asking for the phone back, I question Apple’s policies regarding sensitive material. I mean, we’ve all heard stories about Apple’s secrecy in such matters and the lengths to which they will go to protect their prototypes, and then I read a story like this and begin to wonder if perhaps Apple hasn’t thrown the baby out with the bathwater?
Clearly Gizmodo had a chance to play around with the software, so why didn’t Apple use GPS tracking to trace the phone to Gizmodo’s headquarters? (maybe they did, along with the police)
Perhaps Gray failed to disclose his loss in a timely manner. If he waited even longer than a few hours to report it missing, that in my book is cause for dismissal; bad judgement.
If Gizmodo had time to inspect the software, then so did the person who found the phone and if he did report his findings to Apple’s switchboards as has been reported, then why was there no follow-up on Apple’s part? That part disturbs me.
What prevented the Apple employee from discerning that this was no ordinary iPhone?
Absent Gray’s failure to notify his employer of the missing prototype, the employee failed to realize there might be more to this call than meets the eye. Surely, as information is taken from the caller and plugged into the system it would have triggered an alert, requiring the employee to contact a supervisor immediately.
Provisions should have been made by Apple, upon assigning these highly-classified products to its employees for tracking purposes.
I know it sounds stupid, but I would have put a notice of reward on the back of the prototype along with a 1-800 number to report a lost, stolen, or missing phone. If someone finds an Apple prototype, at least make them aware of its significance and provide ample opportunity to contact Apple through a special telephone number inscribed on the back.
My daughter works in the music biz in London, this her take on the lost iPhone 4 thing:
“That story about the new iPhone being left in a bar is a PR gimmick they nicked off the music industry!”
How Possible/Probable is that?
@Fredo
Police have better things to do
Yes but these aren’t typical police. This is a special task force that specializes in technological/computer crime, so it isn’t like these police are neglecting the crimes that concern you.
In fact, I’m inclined to believe these “police” are on the cutting edge of what will become one of the most significant task forces in the world. Cyber crime is wreaking havoc on all of us and it’s only a matter of time before someone coins the phrase The War on Cyber crime, or Cyber War.
The main reason why this task force has secured the backing of 25 notable companies, including Apple, is we’re talking about obscene sums of money and corporate espionage.
The money Microsoft loses each year to cyber criminals probably exceeds the entire budget for the state of California.
@Galloway
Make the upgrade, man. We’re on Intel now. At least buy a used G5
I made the upgrade three years ago, but the name has been around for eight. In every corner of the mac world, I’m known only by one screen name.
I decided years ago that come hell or high water, on the intertubes, I would be known by only one name.
It was a personal decision to enable me to maintain a constancy of purpose and opinion and I don’t lie, or misrepresent myself.
In other words, I only have one identity and one personality, as in real life.
Fair enough (says the guy who still walks around with a G4 Powerbook — although I do have an Intel iMac!).
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