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Gizmodo pays $5K for iPhone HD: "checkbook journalism" [u]

updated 11:25 pm EDT, Mon April 19, 2010

Prototype rumored to cost $10,000

Gawker Media founder Nick Denton has confirmed that Gizmodo procured an alleged iPhone HD prototype through a payment to the source, according to several Twitter posts. Although the publishing chief has yet to disclose how much the blog paid for to get its hands on the pre-release device, MobileCrunch points to rumors suggesting the price was set at $10,000.

"Yes, we're proud practitioners of checkbook journalism," Denton wrote. "Anything for the story!"

The prototype was allegedly lost by its owner in a Redwood City bar, with the exterior shrouded by an iPhone 3G case. A more recent tweet suggests that Gawker has identified "the sorry Apple engineer who left the next-gen iPhone at the bar," although no further details have been provided.

Denton claims the full backstory surrounding the iPhone prototype will be published in the future. "And it's a corker." [via Daring Fireball]

Update: The Associated Press notes that Gizmodo paid $5,000 for the device, about half of the originally estimated $10,000 price tag.

by MacNN Staff

(18)

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iPhone, Rumor

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azrich
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2010

+17

04/19, 07:41pm | report spam | close Reply |
Paid for the phone?

Well, doesn't that sound like buying property that doesn't belong to the seller? Which makes it trafficking in stolen property. Even if the original property is lost, this could still be a criminal offense. Is there a journalistic protection against a prosecution of this sort?

Hope it's worth it!

Mixotic
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2005

+16

04/19, 07:53pm | report spam | close Reply |
Agreed...

Receiving stolen property is a felony in California (if the property is worth more than $300). If the cops deem that it is in fact stolen, then I would expect charges to be filed.

exca1ibur
Mac Elite

Joined: Oct 2000

+10

04/19, 07:54pm | report spam | close Reply |
Theft?

Sounds like theft to me as well. Buying and selling stolen property.

010111
Junior Member

Joined: Aug 2002

-6

04/19, 08:11pm | report spam | close Reply |
um...?

well wouldn't the party it was stolen from then have to file a police report?

think about it.

if Apple did that... then they would be confirming that it was *in fact* the new iPhone. months ahead of schedule. if they say and do nothing... then the rumors and hype can still be left flying around for those months. might be worth a few months of increased rumors on the matter. Apple could even categorically deny it ("no clue what that is... an impressive knock-off though!") ... *increasing* the rumors and hype.

i have no idea what will happen... just throwing that out there.

stevesnj
Mac Elite

Joined: Apr 2003

-1

04/19, 08:25pm | report spam | close Reply |
yeh

It's lost property not stolen, if apple files a report of stolen goods then it may be an offense. Otherwise, finders keepers.

rtamesis
Dedicated MacNNer

Joined: Jan 2000

+14

04/19, 08:37pm | report spam | close Reply |
Think again, stevesnj

Here in California, the finder of a lost item is required to alert the police and return it to its owner. it doesn't matter if the owner reports it as lost or stolen. Gizmodo may therefore be guilty of buying stolen goods.

Comment buried. Show

ilovestevejobs
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Feb 2007

-34

04/19, 08:40pm | report spam | close Reply |
hahahah

Well I can hear a cricket in the audience when steve blowjobs announces the new iphone :))

People will be like "Ummm yeah we knew way ahead of time. But thats ok steve we also know your pretty much out of date with what consumers want as well"

boo-hiss :D

azrich
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Apr 2010

+4

04/19, 08:42pm | report spam | close Reply |
I see your point..

about what happens if Apple claims it, and you're correct there would have to be a victim in this case.

Stevesnj- you are correct it was lost property. Until the finder converted it to his own use and didn't make a reasonable effort to find the owner or turn it in to police. At least that's how it works in AZ. For example, look at those cases where a bag of money falls off a armored car and the finders get in trouble for keeping the money. I would never equate the intent to that of a conscious thief, but it's still theft.

Now, in this case the whole reason it would be worth $10k (if this actually happened) is BECAUSE it belongs to Apple. If it were a regular iPhone and someone sold it after finding it, that would still be a crime (in AZ).

Still, Apple would have to claim it as you both point out. I really don't see a downside to them claiming it, but I'm not in the biz. I'm sure there are those out there that will believe this is just a very clever publicity stunt on Apple's part.

Don't know if this will make anyone feel better, but I remember a nice story which happened about 10 years ago when I was on light duty and helping out property. Someone had found a billfold with about $200 in it in a local downtown business around Christmas time. S/he turned it into the PD and after a certain time period it was still unclaimed so the finder got to keep it. Of course, there's no cool prototype in that story :)

Does that resolution (4x the original) seem to be a WHOLE lot of pixels in such a small space? If I was better at math I could figure out how the density compares to my 17" MBP which has 1920x1200.

Rich

chas_m
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

+5

04/19, 09:56pm | report spam | close Reply |
Cue the lawyers in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Under California law, both the original "finder" (yeah, I'm really believing he waited for the engineer to come back ... 10 seconds counts as "waiting," right?) and Gizmodo/Gawker acted unlawfully.

I'm not a lawyer, but I've been involved enough in "trade secret" cases to know that Apple is very likely to take legal action over this. They've certainly got enough of a case for the lawyers to play with.

BLAZE_MkIV
Mac Elite

Joined: Feb 2000

-1

04/20, 12:53am | report spam | close Reply |
Plausible deniability

Whats the statute of limitations on receiving stole property. Apple could just wait till the release the next phone and then file charges. The cats out of the bag now if it is next iPhone. The charges will be good to deter the next guy.

facebook_Reedr
Via Facebook

Joined: Apr 2010

0

04/20, 12:56am | report spam | close Reply |
and...

who cares..as far as im concerned today was a good day. i got a check in the mail and i saw the future of the iphone! awesome

facebook_Kevin
Via Facebook

Joined: Apr 2010

+3

04/20, 02:26am | report spam | close Reply |
Who turns up empty handed the next day at Apple, o

You just know they had a roll call for devices-out in the world-and you know this poor b****** lost his job.

caribousteaks
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2004

-1

04/20, 07:03am | report spam | close Reply |
comment title

Too bad for Apple really that this happened. Really let the cat out of the bag. But still I think it will only enhance sales not detract from them. Wet our appetites sort of thing. I wonder if Steve is selling stadium seats for the public execution of the poor sad engineer who had one too many? Stoning by iPhone? Now that I want to see! Steve will probably run over him a few times with his Merc afterwards for good measure. Spin a few doughnuts over his charred corpse.

SockRolid
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2010

+3

04/20, 07:16am | report spam | close Reply |
Gizmodo were the suckers

It really does seem more and more likely that it was a straight theft. And that the whole bar scenario was a (rather stupid) cover story. There can't be any collusion between Apple and Gizmodo to generate hype for the 2010 iPhone.

Why not? Because all this iPhone publicity comes at the worst possible time for Apple. Apple's focus for the first half of this year is iPad, iPad, iPad. iPad has been on Apple's splash page since January and we're right in the middle of the rollout, with the 3G models just about to ship. This crazy iPhone prototype fiasco is diverting attention from where Apple wants it.

So what do you do when you've stolen a real iPhone prototype? You sell it for as much as you can get for it. From the sound of Engadget's story, they saw the thing but had the intelligence to not buy it and get implicated for receiving stolen property. And besides, Engadget has nothing to prove.

Gizmodo, however, does seem to need to prove themselves. So they were the suckers who ended up paying for the prototype. The last thing you want to do after buying a "hot" item is to announce it, literally, to the world. And that's exactly what the imbeciles did. Just for a little spike in web traffic with their "exclusive" hands-on.

Think Secret got hammered by Apple legal, and Gizmodo is next. The guy behind Think Secret actually got paid, I think, to quit. But that was then, this is now, and Gizmodo will be lucky to be able to pay just to avoid going to jail.

And frankly, I couldn't stand reading their stories anyway. Boring prose full of the most basic grammatical errors, the site reads like they used Google Translate from another language.

FreeRange
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jul 2009

+1

04/20, 07:55am | report spam | close Reply |
This is not theft....

This is not stealing, its corporate espionage. People go to jail for this kind of activity, and so should these idiots. This kind of behavior needs to be criminally prosecuted. The impact of what they have done can cost Apple at least in the 10's of millions of dollars and possibly in the 100's of millions. These people are scum - this is not journalism and freedom of the press. This is a crime. I'm a stockholder and mad as h***.

MacMan2000
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2008

+1

04/20, 08:58am | report spam | close Reply |
Value

As far as the value of the device.. Being that it is a prototype its value is yet undetermined, in both retail, actual and r and d. for all we know there is only of this style which could put its value in the 10's of thousands of dollars.

Sukoshi
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2009

+4

04/20, 09:02am | report spam | close Reply |
Great

Good to know that there are people around that would drive away and sell my car if I left it running because finders keepers, or because I haven't filed a report yet, so they didn't "steal" it.

brute
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2006

+4

04/20, 11:14am | report spam | close Reply |
Shame on Gizmodo

You would think that before the natural tendencies of journalistic sensationalism would set in that they would contact Apple to let them know they found the phone before doing all of this...not to mention the bloke who first found the phone!

The closest analogy is if you found someones wallet, knew whose it was, spent the time taking apart the wallet, photographing all of it's contents, making a nice body of text to go with it and publishing all of it online for anyone to see, and then saying, 'You can have it back when you ask for it...'

Stupid jackals. Not that Apple needs to, but I wouldn't be surprised if they find a way to sue the c*** outta' both the finder/seller of the iPhone and Gizmodo.

Wouldn't it just be more human to have called Apple and have said, 'Dudes - we found a phone of yours - how can we get it back to you?'

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Gizmodo pays $5K for iPhone HD: "checkbook journalism" [u]

updated 11:25 pm EDT, Mon April 19, 2010

Prototype rumored to cost $10,000

Paid for the phone?

Agreed...

Theft?

um...?

yeh

Think again, stevesnj

hahahah

I see your point..

Cue the lawyers in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Plausible deniability

and...

Who turns up empty handed the next day at Apple, o

comment title

Gizmodo were the suckers

This is not theft....

Value

Great

Shame on Gizmodo

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Gizmodo pays $5K for iPhone HD: "checkbook journalism" [u]

updated 11:25 pm EDT, Mon April 19, 2010

Prototype rumored to cost $10,000

Related Articles

Recent Articles

Paid for the phone?

Agreed...

Theft?

um...?

yeh

Think again, stevesnj

hahahah

I see your point..

Cue the lawyers in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Plausible deniability

and...

Who turns up empty handed the next day at Apple, o

comment title

Gizmodo were the suckers

This is not theft....

Value

Great

Shame on Gizmodo

Login Here

Register for our weekly email newsletter:

Connect tools:

Subscribe

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Follow us

on Twitter

10 Most Read

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