A man walks into a bar carrying a prototype of Apple’s next iPhone — with a camera flash, higher resolution screen, front-facing camera and a slimmer, glass-like case made of ceramic. But what happens next is not a joke, neither for the man (believed to be an Apple employee — or at least he was at the start of that day) nor for the company — because the man walks out without the precious prototype.
Over the past few days Apple enthusiast’s have been drooling over the result. According to the gadget site Gizmodo, the prototype phone – dubbed the “iPhone 4G” or “iPhone HD” — was found in a bar in Redwood City, California, about 30km from Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. Or — if you prefer the rival site Engadget — it was found on the floor of a bar in San José, about 16km from Cupertino, in the case for the 2008 model iPhone 3G. Whichever it was, the person who found it has been charging websites for the chance to get a hands-on experience with the phone, which is expected to be launched officially by Steve Jobs in June.
Apple wants the phone back very badly — and California’s laws require that the finder of lost property must inform the owner. However that responsibility does not fall on Engadget or Gizmodo.
Although Apple has produced new versions of the iPhone every year since its launch in 2007, there is always competition online to be the first with exact details — and, ideally, photographs — of any new product. Gizmodo is thought to have bought it from the person who found it — who was not the original owner.
Apple is famously unforgiving of staff or suppliers who leak details about new products: anyone who does so can expect to be out of a job within hours. – guardian.co.uk