Finders Keepers? What Should Be Done About the Lost iPhone
July 2nd, 2010 Posted in Mobile CommerceWe’ve all been there. It’s the night of your birthday and you are having a great time with friends at a local bar. By the end, you’re so exhausted you leave and forget your iPhone on the bar stool.
No problem, you can just recover it tomorrow. No harm done. But if you’re Apple employee Gray Powell and that lost iPhone is the not-yet-released iPhone 4G, you’re in big trouble.
It wasn’t just any phone—it was the not-yet-released iPhone 4G.
How One Man Shook Apple to the Core
For Apple Software Engineer, Powell, March 18, 2010 will forever be the night he lost the next iPhone. Powell graduated North Carolina State University in 2006 and later landed his dream job with Apple. His most recent project had him working on the iPhone Baseband Software (the program that enables the iPhone to make calls). Clearly, he knows his stuff.
On the night of March 18, Powell was out celebrating his 27th birthday at German beer garden Gourmet Haus Staudt in Redwood City, California. With him that night was the next generation of the iPhone which he was testing on the streets. To keep the prototype a secret, it was cleverly disguised as a boring, old 3GS iPhone…so 2009.
All around him, people were enjoying their night with drinking and good company. After some time, Powell decided the party was over and went home. Leaving the the infamous lost iPhone behind.
This is how the unnamed middle man recovered what he thought was a normal lost iPhone. While he waited to see if it’s owner would show, he began to play with it. He did not notice anything immediately special about the device. “I thought it was just an iPhone 3GS,” claims the middle man.
When Powell never appeared again, the middle man took it home and soon realized there was something different about this iPhone. He called Apple the next morning to tell them what he discovered. After wasted time and call transfers, he had no luck convincing Apple of what he had.
Unsure what to do, the man dropped the lost iPhone, for a mere $5000, in the lap of Gizmodo, a technology weblog about consumer electronics, who exposed the leaked device.
Gizmoto only had to fork over $5000 for the device.
What’s New About the 4G
Once the lost iPhone reached Gizmodo’s hands, they went to work checking if it was the real deal. Gizmodo determined this was the Holy Grail of iPhones, the 4G, and went to work documenting the new iPhone. There are many changes from past models as well as BRAND NEW FEATURES!
Updates from the 3G and 3GS
- Back is entirely flat and made of a different material (Gizmodo guesses glass, ceramic or shiny plastic)
- Aluminum border on outside
- Smaller screen, but higher resolution
- Squarer shape
- 16% larger battery (with smaller internal components to fit the bigger battery)
- 3 grams heavier
New features on the iPhone 4G
- Front-facing camera for video chats
- Improved back-camera with larger lens than before
- Camera flash
- Micro-SIM (like in the iPad)
- Improved display and resolution
- Secondary mic on top
- Power, mute and new split volume buttons are all metallic
This 4G looks like a response to critics who called Motorola’s Droid from Verizon the answer to everything the iPhone couldn’t do. Looks like now there isn’t much the iPhone won’t be capable of.
Although it’s awesome and exciting to get a sneak peek at Apple’s newest innovation, a question lingers…
So many ethical questions…
Were Gizmodo’s Actions Right or Wrong?
If you’re wondering this, you’re not alone. Many ethical questions have been raised because of Gizmodo’s purchase of the lost iPhone and then exposure on their website.
Although Gizmodo paid for the phone, was this right?
Should Gizmodo have waited to run the story until they had definite confirmation this was the 4G?
And was it right to name to unfortunate engineer who lost it?
Steve Safran of the blog Lost Remote, posed these very questions to his readers and got a variety of responses. Some felt Gizmodo committed bribery and theft, while others saw it as a bargain deal for only $5000.
After reading the story and what’s at stake, what do you think? If you were Gizmodo or the unnamed middle man, would you have acted differently?
Update: Despite paying $5,000 for the lost iPhone, Gawker Media received no direct revenue from the millions of pageviews it received from publishing the scoop.
| By Megan Ahern
Megan Ahern thinks right or wrong, the 4G sounds like one sweet iPhone. Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us. |
2 Responses to “Finders Keepers? What Should Be Done About the Lost iPhone”
By iphone_addict on Jun 25, 2010
Why don’t they have a database of lost IMEI from phones that are lost so that it will not be able to activate(by the finder) within the country.
By Melissa on Jul 6, 2010
iPhone4: Definitely a solid product. Most interestingly is the fact that Apple has created a brand so strong that the general public doesn’t care what they’re getting, all they know is that it is an iPhone. And 4? Well, that has to be better than 3. Kudos to the guy that left the phone in the bar. He let out some not-so-interesting secrets and became one of the biggest news stories that week. At least for me, it brought up the topic of a brand that has the “can do anything” attitude.. even if it’s product can’t.
view discretion advised: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg