Apple’s Inside Job
I’ve been a journalist for 25 years and to say that I’m only a little cynical would be akin to saying Lady Gaga dresses like a librarian.
I never believe anything that is too good to be true.
So, when I heard an Apple iPhone prototype was lost and then miraculously found in a Redwood City, Calif., bar, my BS meter spiked.
I think Apple is simply trying to raise the bar when it comes to dominating the news cycle, and the so-called lost iPhone prototype is a plant: a headline-making ruse.
In fact, the Apple marketing team may very well have stolen a page from the Richard Heene Book of Balloon Hoaxes. But instead of putting one of his children in danger, Steve Jobs sent an employee out to get drunk, which is safe as long as he takes a cab home.
Jobs and Apple are the masters of marketing and self-promotion. If there was ever an Oscar given out for generating headlines, the company would beat out by a wide margin President Obama, Donald Trump and Oprah. Check Gizmodo for its version of the truth.
So with that thought in mind, I think this is all a setup. I think Apple planned every bit of this, down to what kind of beer the prototype tester was hammered on when he left the iPhone in that bar.
I have absolutely no evidence that this is true, but since this is a blog and not a news article, evidence isn’t necessary. (My thanks to Al Gore for creating the Internet and making a journalist’s job so much easier.)
I’m simply following a gut feeling.
I find it hard to believe that Apple allows a 27-year-old kid - yes, a kid, at least from my lofty 46 years - take out the new iPhone for a test drive. My father had serious second thoughts about letting me drive his 1969 Plymouth Valiant, so I doubt Jobs would let this little gizmo out of the Apple compound. Not to mention the fact, the only one in this blog, that Apple admitted the iPhone prototype was real and wanted it back. Apple never admits to anything.
So how else could this all transpire?
It’s an inside job.
Clockwork commented:
This has to be an inside job. According to reports, the "finder" tried to return the phone to Apple, and they shrugged him off. If there had been a "secret" prototype unit that they knew had been lost, why would they not focus extra resources on trying to recover the unit? Even past that, the unit was not completely killed as Apple has the power to do! I know from personal experience, if you're not supposed to have that phone, they will make not usable at all. Especially after connecting to a computer to see files. Clear and cut a successful marketing campaign pulled off by Apple... again and a lot cheaper than the previous ones.
Pablo Escobar commented:
Yes, and I'll betcha Steve Jobs on the grassy Knoll in Dallas with Sirhan Sirhan and the 911 bombers.
Dan commented:
Companies allow its design engineers all the time to use prototypes of upcoming projects. It’s called bug searching. They want to get a sample of things that are wrong with the initial design and fix them BEFORE they go into mass production. Microsoft should do more of this, I think. To find out that a 27 year old software/ firmware engineer at Apple had a prototype unit isn’t a surprise at all to me. Then again, I am a design engineer.
According to the story I have seen, the phone was actually lost on March 18th, killed the next day. The phone remained in the hands of the person that recovered it until he happened to realize what he had, selling it to Gizmodo. The fact that the pictures didn’t appear online until nearly a month after the device was “lost” would have been a huge gamble to Apple. What if the site that got hold of it took the device apart and somehow damaged Apple by revealing design secrets, found a way to unlock the new device before it even went to market? The risk from Apple was very high to risk “planting” the device in a bar.
I am sure Steve is fuming mad over this leak. I bet in the future there will be new rules for those that field test the upcoming iPhones.
mikey commented:
maybe it is. so what? we all wanted a little more info on the new phone. so who cares how they spread the news? competition is the name of the game. whoever gets their first wins. let the games begin!
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