Showing wrong model may be to blame

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has admitted partial responsibility for a company engineer being fired sometime after April 3rd, the day of the iPad launch. Just after midnight on the 3rd, Wozniak says he was joined in a lineup by the engineer, "A.J.," who showed him a 3G iPad. A.J. claimed e-mail permission to use the tablet outside of secure areas beginning at midnight, and Wozniak says he took advantage of this to try the iPad version of Numbers for a few minutes.

Wozniak is even said to have spoken with CEO Steve Jobs later at night, who claimed the preview was "no big deal." The firing may have happened anyway, however, because the iPad was a 3G model, and not the Wi-Fi version which so far remains the only one available to the public. "If I'd known it was a 3G model," says Wozniak, "which I didn't, I probably would have saved his job by telling him he can't show it."

The Apple luminary adds that the firing is questionable, given that an engineer responsible for losing a prototype iPhone is still with the company. "I'm sure that Apple HR told the [other] engineer that it was because everyone in that same situation gets fired. Does that jive with this iPhone situation? What am I missing here?"

by MacNN Staff