The ‘net is abuzz that a next-gen iPhone prototype was supposedly found in a bar and exposed on a couple of websites — Engadget with pictures, Gizmodo with video.

Here’s the timeline according to PCWorld.com:

• Someone finds an iPhone (apparently 3GS)laying in a bar.


• He attempts to find the owner.


• He turns it on and finds it is logged-on to the Facebook page of an Apple engineer.


• He decides to return it in the morning and takes it home.


• Next morning, discovers the phone has been remotely wiped clean.


• He notices the phone looks different than it should.


• Removes it’s camouflage case, discovering it is a 4G prototype.


• He starts selling it to the highest bidder.


• Gizmodo buys the device for $5000 and publishes video of it.

Now accusations have arisen these events were an Apple leak for publicity stunt purposes.

I think the best argument for this being a publicity stunt comes from someone calling him/her-self “iwinter” in this comment left on a BBC blog article about the incident:

So let’s get this straight.

A guy from Apple just happens to forget that he’s just casually carrying a trade secret, and he leaves it at a bar. A guy at the bar finds it and just happens to have the knowledge to turn it on, check the Facebook page and find out the owner after which point it conveniently whipes (convenient in that it didn’t whipe before that point) so that he can’t get any more details about the software. He then just happens to have enough knowledge about Apple iPhone versions to notice it has a front facing camera and is in a fake second case, and just happens to have the know how to take apart what is otherwise a completely sealed device.
[Snipping the part of the comment which seems completely inaccurate. — GN]
He then just happens to sell this to Gizmodo who break the story.

In the meantime, Apple just happens to be told by their employee about the problem very quickly such that they can initiate the remote whiping of the device, and despite it supposedly being a sensitive trade secret, they don’t use the fact the device has GPS to track it’s location, despite clearly having the remote whipe feature in place. They just happen to not bother contacting the authorities, who could’ve traced the phone using the cell signal anyway, despite the fact Apple has a history of being extremely quick to run to the law over the slightest things, let alone something as major as a leak of a top secret product. [In a later snipped part, iwinter again refers to Apple “not contacting the authorities.” Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but in America the police don’t give a crap about stolen cell phones. I’ve read they care about that in Europe, but not here. — GN.]

Gizmodo when finding out that it was classed as stolen, just happen to admit paying for the device, and hence being guilty of paying for and handling stolen goods, a serious felony, and Apple still just happen to ask nicely for it back.

The day after everyone starts questioning the weakness of the original story, more details just happen to be released such as the name of the guy who left it in the bar, and the fact the person who found it accessed Facebook before it was whiped, and they just happen to release the name of the employee.

Really? People actually believe this stuff? Despite Apple’s known history of manufacturing leaks to generate hype, people still believe what is perhaps their weakest, most flawed story yet?

[Another snip. — GN]

I find (most of) that a fairly compelling argument (except where iwinter seems to have his/her facts wrong, such as the finder taking the phone apart, that seems to have been done by Gizmodo). I might add to it wondering about the person who took the iPhone with them rather than leaving it at the bar in case the original owner showed up. But then we know what kind of skeeze we’re dealing with when instead of returning it to the owner, though he believed he knew who that person was (and if nothing else, at a certain point has to realize the phone actually belongs to Apple), he instead started a bidding war to see how much cash he could get.

However, there is also, in my mind, a fairly compelling argument on the other side. ABC news published a story on their website about the hapless person who supposedly lost the phone. They talked to people who were actually present at the bar. They indicate that the person returned to the bar, desperate to find the device. Some quotes pulled from the ABC story:

MaryAnne Staudt, who co-owns the bar, said that Powell was upset when he returned and attempted to recover the phone….

“The poor guy was here endlessly,” said William Andrejko, who seemed familiar with Gray’s attempt to recover the phone.

Despite everything written by the commenter on the BBC site, that looks to me compellingly like someone who actually lost the device — unless Steve Jobs has gone to the trouble of hiring actors for his publicity stunts (or, for the real conspiracy theorists, paying off bar owners and patrons).

Posted: April 22nd, 2010 under Computers & Technology.
Comments: 1

More MySpace “friend” nonsense.

This afternoon, the following subject line graced my email summary:

MySpace Friend Request Trista would like to be added as one of your friends!

Hi Gene,

Trista would like to be added to your MySpace friends list.

Et cetera.

So, I logged into my MySpace account to check this “Trista” out. The control panel blinked happily “New Friend Request!” I clicked on it. The friend request page was blank. Nothing. “No friend requests pending.”

Huh. Now what was that about?

MySpace sends out an email when someone supposedly wants to be your friend, but nothing if they take it back. I think they should send a second email in such cases, something like:

MySpace Friend Request The biatch changed her mind

Hi Gene,

Um, forget we said anything.

Posted: April 16th, 2008 under Life Journals, The Funny Side of Life, Websites.
Comments: none

So, the other day I wrote about getting my first MySpace friend, whom I decided to approve even though they were obviously a spammer. Today I went to my MySpace dashboard and noticed “she” was gone.

I originally wondered if spam-ella had put in the request hoping I would give a shout out to her web page the way I had to my first Twitter follower. (It’s possible spam-ella had somehow seen that, either through some blog watching service or Twitter itself.) When she (assuming it really was a she, a dubious assumption) disappeared, I wondered if she got miffed at me not only not giving her a shout out and a link, but calling her out as a probable spammer.

I didn’t have the address of spam-ella’s profile page to go look at. After a brief tiptoe through the browser history, though, I found it. Lo and behold, the MySpace equivalent of the blue screen of death — the user account has been deleted.

Looks like spam-ella’s spamming ways caught up to her. Which leaves me back with only old “default-Tom” as a “friend.” Sheesh. Next thing you know I’ll be paying for it. “Hey, baby, wanna make $5? Got MySpace? Wanna be my friend?”

Posted: April 15th, 2008 under Life Journals, Websites.
Comments: none

Hot on the heels of getting my first Twitter “follower,” I just got my first MySpace “friend,” a (supposedly) 21 year old female from San Diego.

Unlike the Twitter follower, though, I won’t be giving a shout out, mainly because I believe it is a spam type situation. The profile has no picture and the only information entered is a text graphic which talks about how shy she is, but her friends encourage her to post nude pictures, which, of course, MySpace won’t allow, but if you’ll just click through to this dating site and search on her name….

Yeah, right. SPAM! So why’d I allow the friend request? Eh, no-one else has requested, I’m tired of seeing only the one default friend (the mythical “Tom”), and I’m “seeding the tip jar,” under the theory that maybe this will help bring in more, hopefully legit, “friends.” MySpace is a numbers game, and my score is too low to be picky.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give said spammer any links from here — though, of course, you can go to my MySpace page and follow the trail down the rabbit’s hole if you like. (I almost wrote “down the spammer’s hole” but given the nature of the spam, that just sounded way inappropriate. :/ )

Coincidentally (or not), the only other communication I’ve so far received on MySpace was also spammish in nature. Someone (again, supposedly female) sent me an email saying she hoped I was single and would write her. Oh, but don’t respond here, she’s using a friend’s account, write her at this completely separate and untraceable Yahoo account….

Yeah, right. SPAM! Ah, if only it were true, but it has all the earmarks: generic in nature, “I’m using a friend’s account,” trying to take things to another location (outside MySpace’s reach), no truly personal information available about the sender (or the friend, for that matter), and most of the “friend’s comments” on the “friend’s” page were spammish in nature, as well (”Wow, this really makes you $90 gazillion in 3 days! Check it out!”). And, really, why would a 20-something girl be emailing hoping to date a nearly 40 year old man when there is so little information about me on the MySpace page? It’s ridiculous.

They can sometimes (not in this case, but still…) make these things very convincing, but I’m not biting, sorry.

Posted: April 12th, 2008 under Blogging, Websites.
Comments: 1

Tweetbar is a freeware Firefox-sidebar based client for the Twitter web service. It’s a nice idea, but I found it didn’t work too well (for me, anyway).

• It conflicted with the security add-on NoScript. Tweetbar could not log on to Twitter unless I temporarily turned off NoScript. (After logging on, it had no problems retrieving information, though.) There’s probably a workaround for this I would try to find if I wanted to keep using Tweetbar, but, for the following reasons, I don’t.
• Loss of spell-check. I use Firefox’s built in spell-check — a lot. Right click on a text field, select “Spell check this field,” and you’re off to the races. Not available (apparently) with Tweetbar, meaning I’d have to add steps (i.e. difficulty) to post with Tweetbar. Why, when I could just open Twitter itself and still have fully functioning spell-check?
• Entry box display mangling. When I tried entering a tweet which scrolled past the initial size of Tweetbar’s entry box, the display did not properly follow and I could no longer see what I was typing. It’s bad enough I can’t check the spelling mechanically, but I can’t even see what I’ve typed to use my own brain for spell checking? Uh-uh. No thank you.
• The key combination to bring up Tweetbar (Shift + Ctrl + T) didn’t work for me. I don’t know why. Nothing happened. I had to manually open it using the menu. Annoying process.

There’s probably more, but that’s enough. Overall I was left wondering, as long as I already have Firefox open, why not just load Twitter itself into a tab of its own? It works far better and easier as far as I can tell.

Posted: March 31st, 2008 under Product Reviews, Software Reviews.
Comments: 2