iPhone 4G details emerge

Engadget gets shots of the new iPhone. But is it real? Gizmodo confirms the curious new design: it has the actual thing in hand. Glass on both sides? Gruber finds the patent.

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proletariat

I hope this was an intentional leak for the sake of the man who purportedly lost it, Gray Powell.
- robulus
  
  Firstly, who names their kid Gray?
  
  Secondly, if you underestimate how good German beer is, you know nothing about beer and should immediately drink lots of German beer. And then work your way through Europe, starting with Belgium.
kaffeen

This appears to be nothing more than an honest mistake of an employee who had access to this phone (or possibly was not supposed to have access to the phone off campus in which case he would be at fault). I suspect that this young man is now fired (or will be after potential negative press due to firing). Apple is kind of screwed in some ways because now there is evidence of what they are doing and the competition will have an advantage going forward. On the other, they got some free publicity and pre-release buzz. I suspect that this is a decided advantage for the competition.
robulus

Shenanigans.

Check out the buzz about Android at the moment.
Anonymous

Hey dude, did you see my phone ?

(steve jobs will lose on facebook the friend who paid him another beer in 5 … 4 … 3 … )
FreakCitySF

Had to been planted or bought.
kaffeen

Ain’t no plant and I’ve read they want it back. I would love to be a fly on the wall. Jobs must be about to explode by now.
cmaceachen

There are several high end Android phones coming out in the next couple of months, before the iphone event. Rather than risk losing people to the excitement of new android phones, this is just apple’s way of saying “be patient, we’ve got something interesting coming up too”.

Apple kept ipad prototypes bolted down; what are the chances someone just left a new iphone prototype at a bar?
phisrow

Knowingly harboring stolen property is one of those things that the law generally takes a dim view of.

And I’m not talking a “you might get sued, and civil cases suck” dim view, I’m talking a “federal prison” dim view…

(Or more strictly, if that device is judged to be worth $5k or more(not implausible for a prototype), and has crossed state lines, Gizmodo is in serious shit. If not, their degree of screwedness depends on the applicable state law.)
dculberson

I think it’s gorgeous. Interesting development, for sure, and we’ll see what Apple’s response and the finished product are like.
wrybread

> knowingly harboring stolen property

But its not stolen, its *found*, big difference. I think its up to Apple to prove that it was stolen from them, which it probably wasn’t.

What I want to know is why are the pictures all so weird? If you really had a new iPhone in your possession and wanted to post the deets, wouldn’t you use something other than a cellphone to take the pics? Maybe you’d even turn on macro mode? All the ports are out of focus, and all the reflections in the glass look just a little off.
- Anonymous
  
  “But its not stolen, its *found*, big difference.”
  
  Ah yes, the “it fell off of the back of a truck” defense.
Not a Doktor

Ugh, that is going to look so grubby. I want matte-ish plastic like the original gameboy, durable and non-smudgey.
Curly

Oh come on, people! Do you really think the PR department has nothing to do with leaked shots of pre-release macbooks or iPhones? A prototype super-secret multi-billion dollar consumer product just left in a bar? And it happens to find its way to Gizmodo? It’s insultingly obvious. Now if someone found a “S. J.” monogrammed briefcase with documents describing the next 3 generations of iPhones and their list prices (at release, at 6 months…) *that* would be a find.
Anonymous

APPL intentionally leaked to the world about their upcoming products to generate publicity.. On the surface, human errors seemed to cause this unfortunate, but IMHO AAPL wants to attract imitators early enough for them to build a large quantity of fake released products..
kaffeen

I do find this more dubious as I think about it. Gizmodo is notoriously so far up Jobs ass that they wouldn’t dare breath without his permission. I kind of hope it isn’t an intended leak just to see what happens to Gizmodo. Of course, someone made an important point, it was not stolen it was found. I’m not sure there are many specific laws covering what you can or can’t do with “found” things prior to giving them back (they would have to keep it for it to be stolen). I’m sure Gawker lawyers were consulted before this (if indeed this was unintended by Apple). I find it interesting even if it was a leak. Apple is so secretive normally; for them to leak something intentionally means they have some legitimate fear of competition that could impact their sales.
- peterbruells
  
  Well, if Apple asks Gizmodo to return it to them, they basically confirm that it is real device.
skeptacally

found in a bar, eh?

what is the chance that a one-of-a-kind device like that would make its way from a bar-stool to gizmodo? oh, about .0001%. give or take.

most likely it would be hawked, tossed out (if not able to be cracked), or put in a lost and found forever.

in this case i think “found” might actually mean “given.”
teapot

‘shooped

In all seriousness… this has to be a plant. Funny it drops slightly after the ipad release, isn’t it?

I’m confident it is as real. In terms of the design, it fits almost perfectly with their latest release of the Macbook Pro. Similar metal texture & seemingly identical profile on the corners.

Nice work, Apple – you got the zombies groaning for brains again.
Anonymous

I know it’s a fake story, because Gizmodo’s article keeps going on about all the fine German ales! Ah ha! The vast majority of German beers (fine and otherwise) are LAGERS!

(What’s another epistemological fallacy among friends?)
Anonymous

A lot of commenters here need to RTFA
coldspell

This thing looks more like a Nokia phone than an iPhone.

This phone has too many exposed seams. And I don’t believe Apple would replace the volume rocker with two distinct buttons.
coldspell

Why are there no photos of the phone booted up, running iPhone OS 4?
- Anonymous
  
  Coldspell, ss the Gizmodo article points out, the prototype was bricked remotely using MobileMe… It’s not a stretch at all to think that Apple would have made damn sure no one who found it could start the thing up.
  
  I think it’s pretty undeniable that it is real, although I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t a deliberate leak, especially given Gizmodo’s eagerness to post video of the device.
PrettyBoyTim

I find the design of it interesting – it looks a lot more like something you might get from HTC or Sony than the previous iPhones. I guess the single button on the front face still sets it apart from most phones, though.