Written by Last week we revealed how a supposed prototype of the new iPhone 4G had been lost in a bar, found and somehow found its way into the hands of blog site Gizmodo, who picked it apart and revealed new features.
Now, it appears that the phone is genuine and was lost by Apple employee Gray Powell but now the blog site may well be in trouble after it emerged that they had bought the lost phone.
Californian police raided the home of blogger Jason Chen and seized computers, servers and an Apple iPad amongst other devices. Police are currently investigating whether or not Mr. Chen has broken the law by acquiring stolen property for personal benefit.
Gawker Media, who own and run the Gizmodo blog admitted that they had bought the iPhone prototype from a middleman who acquired it from the person who found the lost phone and sold it to the blog site for around $5,000.
The prototype was returned to Apple, once they had admitted it was theirs, but the whole mess left Apple bosses fuming after their new technology was revealed to the world, months ahead of schedule, when Apple are notorious for keeping their new designs under wraps.
Chen may be exempt from the legalities due to the face that he works as a journalist, and therefore has a right to protect his sources, but time will tell if this will stand as he works on a blog site.
Either way it’s not really good for Gizmodo, or for Apple, but no publicity is bad publicity and we suspect that the revelations of the new prototype will only create yet more anticipation for the new iPhone. Though we do wonder if Apple will remove some of the features, or add in new ones, just to make it different to the revealed prototype.
What a media mess!
