4G iPhone Pics Surfaced Last Month

[HardOCP News]

Hmmm, this is interesting. There were pictures of that 4G iPhone posted over a month ago on Twitpic. Yes, the very same phone that has Apple going crazy to get it back and websites paying $10k for it.

This photo was uploaded on the 20th of February, "Gizmodo's phone" was lost on 18th of March. Go figure..

 

[Reimu]

Engadget had endless debate over those images Steve. When Giz finally had their paid prototype to show, Engadget even had a "I told you so" article out.

 

[Elios]

heh with 4G being the only thing new on maybe Apple is trying this new viral marketing thing out lol like thats going to sell more phone the Droid has them scared shitless

 

[PynkFloydd]

The phone has a GPS built into it. Anyone really think Apple had no clue where that thing was?!?!?! Seriously!

...it's either guerilla marketing or a test to judge market reception of the new design.

 

[pgaster]

The phone has a GPS built into it. Anyone really think Apple had no clue where that thing was?!?!?! Seriously!

...it's either guerilla marketing or a test to judge market reception of the new design.

The latest story is that it was lost at a bar, and the next morning it wouldn't work, meaning it was remote wiped either that same night or very early in the morning. Are you saying that you expect the GPS to still work when the OS and filed have been wiped?
Sure, they can check the GPS location before wiping, but this phone got moved around from the sounds of it, so no, it would not be easily tracked.

 

[worstpe]

The latest story is that it was lost at a bar, and the next morning it wouldn't work, meaning it was remote wiped either that same night or very early in the morning. Are you saying that you expect the GPS to still work when the OS and filed have been wiped?
Sure, they can check the GPS location before wiping, but this phone got moved around from the sounds of it, so no, it would not be easily tracked.

In OS4.0 beta the MobileMe GPS tracking isn't working. So they couldn't find it. All the could do was remote wipe.

 

[MavsX]

The phone has a GPS built into it. Anyone really think Apple had no clue where that thing was?!?!?! Seriously!

...it's either guerilla marketing or a test to judge market reception of the new design.

or the apple engineer got drunk on his birthday and lost it.

 

[anthrex]

Person who found it should've removed the sim card and changed it to airplane mode.

 

[PynkFloydd]

The latest story is that it was lost at a bar, and the next morning it wouldn't work, meaning it was remote wiped either that same night or very early in the morning. Are you saying that you expect the GPS to still work when the OS and filed have been wiped?
Sure, they can check the GPS location before wiping, but this phone got moved around from the sounds of it, so no, it would not be easily tracked.

In OS4.0 beta the MobileMe GPS tracking isn't working. So they couldn't find it. All the could do was remote wipe.

It's Apple! They designed the hardware! Just because they wiped the OS doesn't mean they removed the entire firmware on the device. The story even said that when they started up the phone, it showed a "Connect to iTunes" message. That means that something was still on the phone. Yes, I do expect there to be a basic tracking method in place for a sensitive prototype. That'd be absolutely reckless of Apple to not have such a standard operating procedure in place for sensitive hardware. In the Army, we had sensitive item checks every few hours when in possession of anything of value. ...let alone a prototype. I refuse to believe a design which could possibly cost them millions in revenue had no checks in place.

Not only that, but Gizmodo was offering what...like $100k for an iPad prototype. You think the guy who "found" the device would have settled for $10k? C'mon now! Those celebrity gossip rags pay hundreds of thousands for stupid pictures, you think Gawker media or Weblogs couldn't afford more?

The story reaks of BullS**t!

 

[rush24t3]

or the apple engineer got drunk on his birthday and lost it.

Judging from the numerous pictures Gizmodo posted of the engineer who lost it, he totally looks like a brosef who got drunk on hefeweisen and left it. No viral marketing here, just a mistake.

 

[wiseoracle]

We don't know anything but to speculate.

Who cares, it's all done and we got a look of what it will be.

 

[Drawshot]

I've been following the postings about this iphone pretty closely. My 3g is ready to be replaced and all this hype has definitely got me eagerly anticipating the new iphone's release.

That being said, I think the lost prototype gizmodo aquired was a careful orchestrated leak by Apple. They may deny it, but I think that it is working out way too well at hyping up this new phone. It is out of character for Apple to do something like this, but that just plays into the plausible deniability for the story of how the phone surfaced.

 

[Bgrngod]

You know, reading the story about how Gizmondo got their phone makes me think it was planted there intentionally. I bet Apple is just dropping these things off on people that they think will lead to free press. It's managed to get a lot of attention and articles up on the sites that typically hate on Apple. They know darn well these sites will only write when they have something negative to add, such as taking shots at Apple's "security" that managed to "lose" hardware, but to Apple that's good press.

Surely [H] would not have written nearly as many articles about the iPhone had this not happened.

Brilliant really. All they have to do if be creative about where they decide to unload prototypes that they don't need anymore. What else would they do with them? Destroy them? What a waste.

 

[robothunter]

There is no way Apple is going to sell the iPhone on Sprint. Sprint sucks. Since Sprint is the only carrier with a 4G network I call BS on the iPhone 4G.

 

[PynkFloydd]

That being said, I think the lost prototype gizmodo aquired was a careful orchestrated leak by Apple. They may deny it, but I think that it is working out way too well at hyping up this new phone.

You know, reading the story about how Gizmondo got their phone makes me think it was planted there intentionally.

Completely agree with the both of you! I'd love to see this story exposed as a hoax and revealed for what it is: an elaborate marketing ploy. Now THAT'S a story.

Unfortunately that would never happen because Gizmodo nor Apple would want to look like fools playing the puppet strings of the masses (which both stood to use to financially gain from this event). ...and since those are the only sources of verifiable information on this, there's no way to discredit them without hearsay. So screw both of them for thinking we're all idiots.