Not that I’m one to recycle old news – unless you’re not a geek, you will have heard the fable of the now unemployed Apple tester. In a show of stupidity that would make politicians tut with hypocrisy, an Apple employee was testing out a, supposedly, prototype iPhone 4th generation in a bar and left it behind. Whoever picked it up got on the wire to Gizmodo and came away an iPhone prototype poorer and, apparentely, $5,000 richer.
For my money, I’d say this is genuine. Firstly, it addresses most of the big problems that iPhone users have, including a front facing camera and a bigger battery (Gizmodo cracked it open and found it to be 16% larger). It has a totally new shape that removes the weird bevels around the edges and slightly rounded back-casing, which made the previous incarnations kinda slippery, to a flat cuboid but maintaining the rounded edges, to stop the people who realise how much money they’ve spent on a piece of crap and attempt to poke their eyes out to punish themselves. Looking at the images, the build seems too well-made to have been an amateur and no professional company would dare mock up an iPhone lest they have their arses handed to them (see Apple’s reaction below). Apple generally announce a new iPhone model at WWDC every summer, and have done for the past three years, so it’s entirely plausible that they’d have a completed model in the prototyping phase by now. Plus, given the collective feeling of “meh” about the 3GS last year, which saw the addition of no major dealbreaking features, Apple would surely want to bring out something that, at least visually, is noticeably different.
Apple are not best pleased about this, apparentely, and e-mailed Gizmodo almost immediately after the story broke asking for it back, which I guess they’ve done. They gave the tester, Gray Powell, a 3GS case to hide the different appearance and, I imagine, told him not to show it off given that the front facing camera (and probably a bunch of prototype serial numbers) would be visible. After Powell abandoned it, the finder picked up the device and, reportedly, noticed the front-facing camera, soon realising (after removing the case I gather) that this was an iPhone – but not as he knew it.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that Apple purposely leaked this – intending to drum up hype and interest in the device before formally announcing it in a couple of months. Of course, none of this has been admitted to, but many devices with significant aesthetic or feature changes that Apple have developed usually have a few workshop pictures leaked by “anonymous sources” on the inside; having done it so many times, if Apple wanted to leak this, they’d have to go big. However, Gizmodo is of the opinion this cigar is just a cigar – that this wasn’t a controlled leak but exactly how it looks: an internal screw-up. Certainly, Apple’s insistence to get the thing back is a break from form, acknowledging a leak at all is a new one, as well as (were it a controlled leak) giving an actual device into the public to be dissected and meticulously examined doesn’t play well for them should their competitors get wind of anything particularly groundbreaking (which I don’t think there is) and rush to answer back.
The leap of faith they must’ve had to take, also, that this would fall into the right hands to get plastered across the geek kingdom is perhaps too big for them to feasibly have taken, with only a slim chance that someone would recognise this as something new. After that you get into the territory of paying off bar staff, Powell or even Gizmodo, to explode the story but that’d be an expensive feat and feels a lot like overkill just to get a bit of attention, with no obvious financial benefit – previous “leaks” have been mere pictures and much cheaper with an almost identical effect.
Gizmodo’s reasons for feeling smug about besting Apple at their own game hinges mainly on their own experiences with Apple’s PR – a generally secretive affair – but makes the point that their secrecy over the years would be completely upended if they were to “leak” working prototypes significantly early before an announcement (generally “leaks” occur days, if not hours, beforehand).
Time, as it always does, will tell – I’m looking forward to Jobs’ demeaneour when he announces it to the suprise of no-one. Knowing Jobsy he’ll either be really coy about it, make a joke or won’t show up at all. What’s the point of being on an endlessly repeated clip announcing a new chapter in the iPhone saga if the crowd’s reaction will be so underwhelmed?
Tags: Apple, Fourth Generation, Gizmodo, Gray Powell, iPhone, Leak
How are the apps on the iPad? I’ve heard the gaming is quite good!
[...] new look, that departed from many of Apple’s staple design features after the device had been leaked by Gizmodo. Jobs explained that the stainless steel edge of the handset made up the antenna band for all [...]