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Apple Wants its Missing iPhone 4G Back, Please

by Amar Toor on April 20, 2010 at 09:38 AM

In case you thought that yesterday's iPhone 4G "leak" on Gizmodo was just another deftly orchestrated PR stunt... guess again. According to the New York Times, all signs thus far point to a simple, straightforward and highly uncharacteristic Apple leak. And apparently, Steve Jobs is doing his best to plug the hole.

Yesterday, Gizmodo gave an in-depth explanation of how it got a hold of the unreleased iPhone, claiming that it was discovered at a German beer garden in Redwood City, CA, apparently left behind by a 27-year-old Apple software engineer. The next generation iPhone appears to be packing a front-facing camera, a flash (for photography) and a higher resolution screen. TUAW described the phone's unique design direction: "Instead of the rounded back that's a part of current iPhones and iPod touches, this unit is flat on the front and back."

Nick Denton, the CEO of parent company Gawker Media, told the Times that the person who recovered the iPhone approached Gizmodo and sold it for a grand total of $5,000. It was rumored that Steve Jobs had called Denton requesting that he return the model, although Denton declined to comment to the Times, insisting that any conversation between Jobs and himself would remain off the record. Finally, late last night, Gizmodo received a letter from Apple Senior Vice President and General Counsel Bob Sewell, requesting that the gadget blog return the phone to its rightful owner. Gizmodo confirmed that it would return the phone.

Silicon Valley forecaster Paul Saffo says it's "unlikely" that this was just another "devious marketing scheme" on the part of Apple, and judging from Gizmodo's account of the story, it seems far too elaborate even for someone like Jobs to pull off. But by choosing to fully engage in the narrative by formally requesting that Denton and Co. return the phone, the company is only turning lemons into lemonade.

Interestingly, it took only a simple Twitter search for a curious teenager to dig up photos of the 4G back in February, so it's not like Apple was necessarily covering all of its bases to begin. When Gizmodo's model was confirmed as real yesterday, the teenager went absolutely crazy on his Twitter page with the kind of exuberance normally reserved for kids holding a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's factory (Note: the original pictures were confirmed by Engadget, Gizmodo's competitor and Switched's partner blog).

This hushed whisper turning into an excited roar is exactly what Apple loves to see, because that reaction is exactly what perpetuates its mystique. A genuine mistake may leave this forgetful engineer on thin ice, but by turning an otherwise normal leak into an open-but-still-mysterious tale of Apple fandom discovery, Cupertino will only benefit. [From: NYT, ReadWriteWeb, Gizmodo and Engadget]

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Tags: Apple, engadget, gizmodo, iphone, iphone 4g, Iphone4g, leak, prototype, steve jobs, SteveJobs, top

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