Interesting Article in today's Irish Times about the "lost" prototype iPhone

Tom Dunne

Linky here: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0521/1224270806406.html

Basically, it's asking if Apple went too far in hounding the police to find out who was involved in the whole saga.

Yes, every company has a right to protect their intellectual property, but the article raises some interesting questions on how Apple views freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the US.

Even if this is all one clever marketing ploy by Apple, I think they went too far with this one.

BrianD

There is quite a nasty side to Apple between this, recent firings of staff and reports of suicides and working conditions in the Chinese factories that make their devices. Having said that, the same factories probably make a lot of other peoples products as well.

The police action against the Gizmodo guy was very handed. Having said that its a smart idea to have a police division that protects the software industry as it is a national asset. They did go to far in this case and the action gives the appearance of the police working for apple. Apple had quite a few opportunities to recover the device without the cops. One presumes that they didn't want to asknowledge that the device was theirs.

I suppose it does stem from a company that likes to restrict their customers and shove things down their throats saying if we made it must be good. Then again you don't have to buy their products if you don't like their ethics.

Mr Bloat

One of the problems is that many people don't know or don't want to know about the bad side of Apple, they see the shiny gadget and the "cool" marketing and put their trust in the almighty Steve. I've lost count of the amount of times I've heard people say or post online phrases like "I trust Apple to do it right". Most of these people will never believe bad press about Apple.

Pittens

Given that the bad press is largely manufactured, why would they?

Mr Bloat

Pittens wrote: »

Given that the bad press is largely manufactured, why would they?

And who is it that you believe is largely manufacturing this bad press?

Pittens

And who is it that you believe is largely manufacturing this bad press?

A largely pro-MS, or pro-Goggle technology press.

This was, along with all of the press coverage on Apple recently, totally overblown nonsense.

An Apple employee loses a phone.
It is found, and then sold on. Thats theft. By fencing the item you steal it.

Apple reports to Police.

Press goes mad. Apple accused of heavy handed tactics for reporting a stolen item.

kjl

Hmmm,

I think apple made most of the mistakes here, firstly, they could have used mobile me to track down the phone, or even ring it, but no they decided to remote wipe it and not even put an "if lost" message on it.

Then after the story goes worldwide, they should have just dealt with it got the phone back and called it quites, do you really think the releasing early images is going to affect sales one little bit.....no

Gizmodo is a known for being an attention whore, for example the posted explicit instructions on how to hack the wii to play back up games, did nintendo do anything, does anyone even remember that post? No, but if nintendo made a big stick over it, the article was going to get more publicity.

The people who read gizmodo are people who are interested in that kind of information, I asked several people what they thought of the new iPhone and the didn't have a clue what I was talking about, even iPhone owners. But when Apple overreact so much it brings more attention.

Cut your losses apple, Its not like its going to affect sales even the slightest bit.

Don't lable yourself as a lame company because of a mistake that they made.

Im still tuning in in June to see the actual keynote, so wheres the beef?

BrianD

Pittens wrote: »

A largely pro-MS, or pro-Goggle technology press.

This was, along with all of the press coverage on Apple recently, totally overblown nonsense.

An Apple employee loses a phone.
It is found, and then sold on. Thats theft. By fencing the item you steal it.

Apple reports to Police.

Press goes mad. Apple accused of heavy handed tactics for reporting a stolen item.

Really? Another Apple apologist here. You mean to see that Apple doesn't get good press? All those tv pictures of queues for their products, columns of press coverage and photos. Sometimes when I pick up the business pages of one national dailies it's hard to know if its written by an Apple pr person our an objective journalist.

Apple really reinforced their Big Brother control culture with the police raid on that journalist. They were given ample opportunity to get their device back quietly. Even if the police were required, surely the local head of police could have called round and recovered the device or at least established if they would get it back voluntarily. Instead they went in heavy and its a resulting PR disaster for the company. Are they surprised? This is the stuff of movies.

jeromeof

Guys,
I don't think there is necessary an pro-microsoft (at least when it comes to Apple), but there is definitely a pro-apple and an anti-apple. Sometimes the pro-apple guys go crazy defending Apple when they are in-defensible (for example, blocking Adobe's flash-2-iphone generation tool) and sometimes the anti-apple guys go crazy (for example complete negative press around the iPad announcement - no USB, front-camera, what's it for, etc).

In this case I do think the anti-apple fan-boi's have the upper-hand (because Apple isn't really saying anything about it), but I do think GizModo's handingly of this whole thing was wrong. They knew they had a stolen product (Engadget and Wired could have got this but backed down on legal advise), they could/should have return it to apple (possible got some nice exclusives in return), but they went public then behave like bullies to Apple. Sort of like a bully robbing a kids lunch, making fun of it infront of the whole school and getting the kid to beg for it back. This was especially true which they published the email from Apple asking for the device back. Also, I can't imagine this task force being directed by Apple, if anything, the task force may have got carried away (probably the first time they were called into action). Ultimately this action will cost Gizmodo, as they almost certainly will not be invited to any Apple events and certainly won't be treated to "preview" of new devices, like some journalised where before the iPad release. So the next apple launch nobody will be looking at Gizmodo's website, they will look at Engadget/TechCrunch instead and given that it will be the actual unveiling of the "real" new iPhone, I think Gizmodo have probably shot themselves in the foot.

Apple like to keep very quite/secretive about their products and as a marketing strategy it is brilliant. Since, it allows lots of stupid speculation about a product before anyone see it and builds up expectation for the "big event". But being secretive is obviously very difficult in a world where we all crave instant news gratification and where you have to manufacture and test your devices outside your controlled environment. So, I can see this happening more and more (and it will become very boring as it is already with various other prototype leaks).

Jerome