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Gizmodo gets its hands on the new iPhone prototype

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BocoDragon said:
You basically blamed Gizmodo for their actions when it was necessitated by the circumstance.

1. You work for Gizmodo, and someone comes forward to you with an iPhone prototype. You could ignore it, but that's unlikely. You're going to run some sort of story because it's your job. You're a news site. If you don't do it, someone else will... and if you do it you profit.

2. In order to prevent the implication that it's stolen, or leaked, you'll have to describe how and where you got it... so you describe the circumstance of who lost it, and how, in order to legally guard your ass.

I don't see Gizmodo as a villain here. The guy who lost it is at fault, or the guy who sold it.

Hell, even the guy who sold it... what would you do with an iPhone prototype? Just forget about it and turn it into Apple? You'd have to be a better man than most of us to do something like that. Most would seek profit.

I think the implication that people were "corrupt" in this instance is false. The person who worked for Apple has it in his job description not to lose that phone.. perhaps he is at fault!... everyone else was compelled by the circumstance to do what they did.
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You don't see how it is wrong to buy a stolen prototype and then reveal it to the whole world months in advance?
 
rezuth said:
You don't see how it is wrong to buy a stolen prototype and then reveal it to the whole world months in advance?
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I see how it's ugly.

And I see how every publication in the world would probably do it.
 
Yeah, outing the guy is an incredible dick move. Before, I would have supported them if Apple went after them but now, fuck them, no need to make it personal with specific Apple employees. Only people who need to know are Apple, Gizmodo and their lawyers.
 
BocoDragon said:
I see how it's ugly.

And I see how every publication in the world would probably do it.
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I find it sad that you do such big generalizations based on the action of a single idiotic blogger.
 
rezuth said:
I find it sad that you do such big generalizations based on the action of a single idiotic blogger.
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Get a job in a big company sometime.. and you'll understand!

If one person doesn't do it out of principle.. well, another will.

If one publication doesn't do it out of principle... well, another will.

Which pretty much guarantees that the first person in the first publication will. :P
 
What you "feel" or "think" is irrelevant to CA law.

Look at 2080.1:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=civ&group=02001-03000&file=2080-2080.10

Specifically 496:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=484-502.9

None of this is controversial law so I'm not at all sure what you're attempting to argue or how your narrative or view of Gizmodo's motives (or compulsions) is relevant. Circumstances don't necessitate an illegal action.

But more importantly to me, Gizmodo's venue to describe its actions is in a court of law, not the "court of public opinion." Gizmodo had no necessity to reveal the engineer's identity. Period.
 
sweetvar26 said:
What the fuck? Why would you name the guy who lost the prototype? He probably is in enough shit already.
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I personally can't wait till someone names the fucker that stole the phone and sold it.
 
wonderkins said:
But more importantly to me, Gizmodo's venue to describe its actions is in a court of law, not the "court of public opinion." Gizmodo had no necessity to reveal the engineer's identity. Period.
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That's actually a very good point. I don't want to argue you on it. I think it was ugly.

I think Gizmodo felt a need to justify themselves... not just legally, but in the blogosphere..

Of course, in the realm of public opinion... people might think less of them for that anyway.
 
Mecha_Infantry said:
You guys obviously didn't read what I wrote. yes I do know MM has remote swipe, that's the whole point of my argument. Read the part where it says it also has GPS tracking, so maybe Apple could have tracked where the phone was before it got into the hands of Giz

Comprende?
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I see.

The GPS tracking is pretty inaccurate though, especially indoors. And even if Apple could track it, maybe they weren't willing to take the chance of giving strangers precious minutes with the phone from the moment they knew it had been lost.

The guy was an idiot not have it passcode locked though.

Hmm... but what about remote locking (without actually wiping it)? Is that possible?
 
wonderkins said:
@BocoDragon: I don't mean to be harsh. I apologize for that.
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Dude no offense taken that's how it works around here. Totally cool :)
 
I've never used this word on gaf before but gizmodo are complete and utter cunts of the highest order!

Bookmark deleted, go fuck yourselves cocksucker! Just in case people missed it, they post an open letter to him, why not just fucking email the guy.

Cunts.
 
Dreams-Visions said:
i did.

they object. ethics, it's not reporting, Apple should sue.

except that the Beta News article is getting hits by trying to capitalize on the guys who broke the story. believe Beta News would have been above running the same "NextGen iPhone revealed!" article if they had received the iPhone if you want to. I don't buy the "high and mighty" angle for a second.

ymmv.

(don't kill me for disagreeing)
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I don't think you understand; there are actual legal issues involved as wonderkins has outlined. I don't care about any of the parties involved, the ethics or even about the fact gizmodo made the identity of the owner public.

BocoDragon said:
I see how it's ugly.

And I see how every publication in the world would probably do it.
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Actually, almost any real publication would have, in all likelihood, decided against it
 
Man, I wake up to find that gizmodo wrote another post about that Powell dude telling him to keep his chin up? Those fuckers. :lol


I wonder if they'll be so cheeky when they find themselves uninvited to every Apple event in the future. They should get an open letter from Apple telling them to keep their chin up.
 
Just heard about this, lol lost in a bar.

Prototype or not I dislike the flat back design, maybe because I am too use to my sexy curved 2g touch.
 
Eaten By A Grue said:
We outed you and ruined your career and life. Hang in there!
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To be fair, he did go out and get hammered while in possession of a top-secret device. He's not exactly faultless here. Not that I'm defending the actions of Gizmodo, just saying the guy did lose it in the first place.
 
Magnus_Bulla said:
To be fair, he did go out and get hammered while in possession of a top-secret device. He's not exactly faultless here. Not that I'm defending the actions of Gizmodo, just saying the guy did lose it in the first place.
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But at the same time it just seems terribly cruel of gizmodo to publicly shame the guy in such a way. It's not as though apple had no idea who lost the phone so clearly he was already in a lot of trouble, but to invite the entire world to laugh at him and tarnish his future... That's not right.

Gizmodo aren't so much adding salt to his wounds as they are ripping those wounds wide open and pulling out all his vital organs for everyone to see.
 
how do we even know this powell character is real? dick move sure, but i think folks should stop drinking the gizmodo koolaid and wait until there's a *real* confirmation about the story. for all we know they're just milking the public for hits.
 
Oh come on, people believe that this whole thing isn't just a stunt? That Gizmodo would brag about how much they paid for a stolen phone, then out the guy who lost it? That Apple sends a polite letter asking where they can meet to pick up the phone? Ok.
 
Sew said:
Oh come on, people believe that this whole thing isn't just a stunt? That Gizmodo would brag about how much they paid for a stolen phone, then out the guy who lost it? That Apple sends a polite letter asking where they can meet to pick up the phone? Ok.
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Right, it's much more logical to assume Gizmodo paid Foxconn hundreds of thousands of dollars to manufacture a fake iPhone with Apple's logos over all the pieces, and spend months or years building up this fake identity on Facebook for which could perfectly take the fall in Gizmodo's perfectly-planned, multi-year scheme to... fake an iPhone.

Much more about this makes sense than doesn't.
 
Andrex said:
Right, it's much more logical to assume Gizmodo paid Foxconn hundreds of thousands of dollars to manufacture a fake iPhone with Apple's logos over all the pieces, and spend months or years building up this fake identity on Facebook for which could perfectly take the fall in Gizmodo's perfectly-planned, multi-year scheme to... fake an iPhone.

Much more about this makes sense than doesn't.
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"Establish trust.......

for 48 years.

Then run off with Jerry's sneakers"
 
If it was lost, I assume the person who took it either meant well, or didn't know what they were doing. If you're gonna steal a phone, the first thing you do is turn it off and take out the sim card. Can the phone be bricked if they did that? PEACE.
 
Eaten By A Grue said:
We outed you and ruined your career and life. Hang in there!
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you're right - Apple had no idea who lost the prototype until Giz leaked his name. ::massive rollyeyes::
 
giga said:
Doesn’t Apple have a Q2 earnings report today?

Curious timing..
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I wonder if, during the Q&A, someone from the press will ask them if they have a new, flat backed, aluminum ringed, hi res display iphone coming out.



...no comment
 
I was expecting the thread on blogs and 'yellow journalism' coming back up.

... maybe not, but the issue is at full display here :lol
 
Pimpwerx said:
If it was lost, I assume the person who took it either meant well, or didn't know what they were doing. If you're gonna steal a phone, the first thing you do is turn it off and take out the sim card. Can the phone be bricked if they did that? PEACE.
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It doesn't matter what he meant considering the subsequent actions; ie. the fact he sold property that didn't belong to him. Moreover, he should have let the bartender take care of it, turned it in to the proper authorities or attempted to contact the owner. It appears he found out who the owner is and, in addition, had to know it was a prototype device so just contacting Apple would have sufficed.
 
scorcho said:
you're right - Apple had no idea who lost the prototype until Giz leaked his name. ::massive rollyeyes::
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It's not that Apple didn't know, It's that now every employer who looks him up knows he lost a secret prototype phone, so if he ever leaves Apple but tries to get into the same line of work he may be pretty screwed.

Although, in all honesty, he did lose the phone so any potential future employers wouldn't exactly be in the wrong to not hire him for a position that covered handling unreleased products, but still, it's not something he'd have put on his resume and advertised himself.
 
Pretty much.

No reason to buy a HTC Desire, Legend, X10, Incredible, Kin, HD Mini etc etc etc.. not now we have confirmation that a new and improved iPhone is on the way...
 
scorcho said:
you're right - Apple had no idea who lost the prototype until Giz leaked his name. ::massive rollyeyes::
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Because he will only work and live at Apple his whole life ::massive rollyeyes::
 
I can't think of any product that needs hype generated around it more than the iPhone. Do you all remember when they announced the last one? Hardly anyone cared!
 
Majik said:
Pretty much.

No reason to buy a HTC Desire, Legend, X10, Incredible, Kin, HD Mini etc etc etc.. not now we have confirmation that a new and improved iPhone is on the way...
Click to expand...

:lol
 
KHarvey16 said:
I can't think of any product that needs hype generated around it more than the iPhone. Do you all remember when they announced the last one? Hardly anyone cared!
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Everyone bought it though.
 
rezuth said:
Because he will only work and live at Apple his whole life ::massive rollyeyes::
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i have no sympathy for his mistake, nor that he was a pawn in a PR/possible legal battle between Apple and Gawker Media. he put himself into that position. i also am under no illusion that he can't find work the rest of his career.
 
KHarvey16 said:
I can't think of any product that needs hype generated around it more than the iPhone. Do you all remember when they announced the last one? Hardly anyone cared!
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no kidding. my wife only waited in line for 4 hours for mine. Pretty sure they are looking for at least 12 hour lines here.
 
Majik said:
:lol

I meant to quote sew...

The leak was obviously intentional.
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don't be so sure of that.

Apple doesn't leak shit like this. they whisper secrets in the ears of reporters at big papers like the NY times. they don't give out prototype phones to gadget blogs.
 
syllogism said:
It doesn't matter what he meant considering the subsequent actions; ie. the fact he sold property that didn't belong to him. Moreover, he should have let the bartender take care of it, turned it in to the proper authorities or attempted to contact the owner. It appears he found out who the owner is and, in addition, had to know it was a prototype device so just contacting Apple would have sufficed.
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I feel no sympathy for a corporation. Apple can sit and spin. Once contacting the owner fails, I refer you to Finders v. Keepers. After that, it just makes the most sense to cash-in on the item. There's no nobility in returning a device to a multibillion dollar company. They'll still sell a gajillion of these things. All things considered, I'd figure it would be worth more than $5k, but maybe this person just had some bills to pay.

IMO, Gizmodo is the only one to blame here. Running the first article was perfectly fine. Once they named names, they ran foul. They already made a big profit on their purchase with page hits. They didn't need to burn anyone like that. PEACE.
 
Majik said:
:lol

I meant to quote sew...

The leak was obviously intentional.
Click to expand...

yeah, NO.

This is Apple, why would they give news of their biggest product to a tabloid rag like gizmodo?
 
Pimpwerx said:
I feel no sympathy for a corporation. Apple can sit and spin. Once contacting the owner fails, I refer you to Finders v. Keepers. After that, it just makes the most sense to cash-in on the item. There's no nobility in returning a device to a multibillion dollar company. They'll still sell a gajillion of these things. All things considered, I'd figure it would be worth more than $5k, but maybe this person just had some bills to pay.

IMO, Gizmodo is the only one to blame here. Running the first article was perfectly fine. Once they named names, they ran foul. They already made a big profit on their purchase with page hits. They didn't need to burn anyone like that. PEACE.
Click to expand...
Obviously no one should feel sympathy for Apple, but that doesn't change the fact what he did was not legal
 
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