New iPhone 4G rumors exposed

Ryan Wilsey 19 Apr, 2010 at 4:08pm ET Article published in Tech

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There has been quite a stir regarding an alleged Apple iPhone 4G that was discovered in a bar in San Jose. The phone was acquired by Gizmodo, which has examined it and are reporting that they believe it to be genuine.

The new phone model looks similar to the previous iPhone lineup, but with a new “boxier” body style. It’s now thinner than the 3GS, but while the main components inside are smaller, the 4G appears to be sporting a larger battery. In the camera department, the 4G sports an improved camera with a flash on the back, as well as an eagerly anticipated front-facing camera. The display is also higher in resolution than previous iPhones, though an exact number hasn’t been discerned yet.

The iPhone was running iPhone OS 4.0 for a brief period of time, according to the person who initially found it. It has since stopped operating, likely killed remotely by Apple, who are indeed reporting a missing iPhone prototype and desire it to be returned.

Other changes from 3GS:

Micro-SIM format
Secondary mic on top by headphone jack – possibly for noise cancellation
Split buttons for volume, rather than 1 rocking bar
Metallic buttons for power, mute, volume control
Entirely flat backing likely made of glass or ceramic, rather than rounded plastic
Aluminum border around outside
Smaller screen size but higher resolution – possibly 960×640
3 grams heavier
16% larger battery

Other specs include:

Size dimensions: 4.50 by 2.31 by 0.37 inches
Weight: 140 grams (+3 grams over 137-gram 3GS)
Battery: 5.25 WHr at 3.7V (3GS is 4.51 WHr at 3.7V)
Data: Unknown at “XXGB”, but 80GB according to engadget.com

It is unknown when this model will either be available for purchase or even confirmed as the next iPhone. However, it is suggested by Gizmodo that it will likely be this year’s model, perhaps coming this summer. They also described it as looking and feeling superior to the past iPhone models, with intelligently-designed aesthetics.

You can find the official YouTube video below, with other videos found on Gizmodo’s article.

Photos below are from Gizmodo.com:

Comments

19 Apr 2010 ~ 4:15pm QCH Not bad looking...
19 Apr 2010 ~ 5:23pm Annes Either Gizmodo is lying about where they got the phone or they're a bunch of jackasses. I would prefer the former because that leaves them with at least a tiny bit of integrity.
19 Apr 2010 ~ 5:26pm Snarkasm The story's uniform, at least - Engadget mentioned a couple days ago that somebody found it at a bar and were shopping it around to the highest bidder among the tech blogs.
19 Apr 2010 ~ 5:26pm Thrax Blog? Integrity? LOOOOOOOOOOOL.
19 Apr 2010 ~ 6:57pm pseudonym I'm thinking conspiracy, probably leaked on purpose. Last time I checked there wasn't a finders keepers law on the books.
19 Apr 2010 ~ 8:52pm Linc Apple doesn't leak, least of all to Gizmodo or Engadget.
19 Apr 2010 ~ 9:07pm Kwitko But drunk Apple engineers might leak.
19 Apr 2010 ~ 9:32pm pseudonym Giz just hung the poor guy out to dry who left it at the bar. He already farked up enough, but it did get you a gagillion pagehits and now you post his name on the net? Greeeeatt...

It still wouldn't surprise me if they leaked it simply because everyone was getting tired and paying less attention to their old marketing.
19 Apr 2010 ~ 10:23pm GnomeWizardd Oh man to be a fly on Steve jobs wall if this is real, Mr Control is prolly having the biggest bitch fit the world will ever know!
20 Apr 2010 ~ 2:58am Snarkasm Assuming this whole thing isn't purposeful:

To be fair to Giz, it's not like Apple doesn't know who it was. If they fire somebody and the world doesn't associate the name, they have no qualms firing him even just for misplacing something. If Giz puts the name out and everybody sees that Gray just got fired, Apple feels a bit more pressure to explain why they canned somebody for a small mistake like that.

Giz didn't hurt Gray's chances with Apple by posting his name.
20 Apr 2010 ~ 1:25pm Bandrik Gizmodo has published a follow-up article about the Apple employee who lost the iPhone 4G at the bar, Gray Powell... and has been met with several comments from suspicious and angered readers.

Calls of shenanigans and accusations of a controlled leak for publicity are flying around. The public's reaction to the article has me intrigued. I was expecting a series of "wow that sucks poor guy" reactions, but instead it's more of a "fuck you, Gizmodo!"

Personally, for the time being, I've lost a bit of respect for Gizmodo. We'll see how the dust settles.
20 Apr 2010 ~ 1:32pm Ryder And, in the end, Gizmodo gets what it wants, just like all the other times things like this happen.
20 Apr 2010 ~ 4:30pm primesuspect Traffic is the currency in this game, and they win.
20 Apr 2010 ~ 5:23pm Cliff_Forster Did Gizmodo do anything unethical to obtain the scoop? Apple engineer leaves a phone at the bar, some guy picks it up, Gizmodo pays that guy 5K for an exclusive look at the gadget....

I'm not sure I totally understand what all the fuss is about. I mean, I get the competitive view on street dates and why content publishers should enforce them... But this, its like a TV network paying for an exclusive interview, sure, its not the preferred practice for good journalism, but it happens all the time.

Help me understand why everyone's knickers are in a bunch over this?
20 Apr 2010 ~ 5:25pm Snarkasm Fanboys want to think Apple leaked it on purpose because they're allsome, bleeding hearts think they shouldn't have released the dude's name even though everybody who cared knew it, and everybody else is just pissed that Giz is getting pageviews of which they're jealous.

Done.
20 Apr 2010 ~ 5:30pm Bandrik

Cliff_Forster wrote:

Help me understand why everyone's knickers are in a bunch over this?

I'll tell you my personal thoughts on it, as naive as they likely are. I'm happy to see (and cover) the iPhone 4G scoop/rumor/whatever. The main part that I'm a little irked about is how they really put the guy who was in charge of hanging on to the phone, Gray Powell, out to wash. Kind of an invasion of privacy. I know, it's what the media does, but it still isn't very cool.

The whole thing does seem a bit suspicious to me, but not enough to get me upset.

And I don't care about some giant site getting more pagehits. They can have it for all I care. It's either them, or some other group that has money to throw around.
20 Apr 2010 ~ 5:34pm Cliff_Forster

Snarkasm wrote:

Fanboys want to think Apple leaked it on purpose because they're allsome, bleeding hearts think they shouldn't have released the dude's name even though everybody who cared knew it, and everybody else is just pissed that Giz is getting pageviews of which they're jealous.

Done.

See, that was pretty much my interpretation, and you know what I say,

Cliff + Snark in agreement = fact.

I will say, the only item I find even mildly questionable was in the necessity to release the guy's name that "lost" the phone. Other than that, I can't take any exception to how they handled anything. They got a cool story because they paid for it. It kind of sucks, but hey, David Frost paid to interview Nixon didn't he?
20 Apr 2010 ~ 6:08pm pseudonym Fanboy I'm not.

I'm not necessarily pissed about breaking the story, although I find it slightly morally questionable the way the phone was obtained. I'm more upset about the subsequent relase of the engineer's name on the internet. Obviously Apple knows he lost the phone and publishing his name doesn't hurt him or help him with Apple, he's most likely screwed if this was not a planned leak. My main issue is that you post his name all over the internet and there is no real reason to do so. He is most likely in a precarious job situation and now the whole internet knows that it was him who lost a HUGELY important prototype. These companies take these sorts of situations VERY seriously and losing that phone is a f'up of the highest order.

It's akin to me taking shots of prototype automobiles and then losing my camera, only to find the shots posted on the internet. You better believe I would get fired. And if my name was posted, you better believe that me finding a new job in the automotive industry would be made a thousand times more difficult. Now imagine that happened in an even more internet connected industry as it did here. They just shat all over this kids career for a stupid little mistake. Not only might he lose his current job, his life was just made a lot harder for the near future for a stupid mistake he made.

In reality did Giz harm Apple? Most likely not, which seems to be why Apple isn't going too crazy about this. Obviously its the new iPhone, and obviously its going to be upgraded. No real nitty gritty got let out that could hurt them with a competitor and they got the phone back. Its the more tabloid esque outing of the guy who made the mistake that bothers me.

After all that, I still think this stinks of a staging. First the phone appears, then it blows up to the big media outlets, then the story of the guy who lost it appears, which then blows up to the big media outlets, and then the letter from Apple appears..... Keeping the ball rolling rather nicely I think, but that could just be Gawker media working it like they should.

/tinfoil
20 Apr 2010 ~ 8:47pm Bandrik

pseudonym wrote: »

(everything that he said)

^this
20 Apr 2010 ~ 9:27pm Linc Giz probably committed theft by not returning the iPhone immediately (according the California law).
21 Apr 2010 ~ 12:59am pseudonym

Lincoln wrote:

Giz probably committed theft by not returning the iPhone immediately (according the California law).

I hate to say it, but I hope they get at least a swift kick in the rear (I thought it was stealing in the first place). It seems to me that the internet likes to hold itself to a different standard (IC seems not to be included in this, I U!!) and greed rules the roost, and I find Gawker at the top of this list (For the record, I don't blame them, they are just working the current game) For some reason, journalistic integrity has disappeared and the "click" has become god, hence that story was posted on EVERY GAWKER MEDIA BLOG (Which is smart BTW..... urge to hate rising).

Full disclaimer. Do I really understand this gray area? No. Am I a journalist? No. Would I have done what they did? No. MHO. Their excuse about Apple ignoring them is BS to me. I would have walked into the lobby and given it to the receptionist. Then again, I don't have millions resting on my pagehits, and it's pretty easy for me to say that when I don't have a million dollar prototype in my hands. Quite the conundrum but I hope I toe my own line.

I have been involved in several situations where a rival company learns something about their competition, keeps their mouth shut, and actually tells the competition about the leak. Do they know the info? Yes. Do they take the honorable route out of the situation, yes. Do they publicise (God Save the Queen) it all over the place going NAHANAHANHANHA, Cha-Ching! NO.

Did Giz do this, meh.... They jumped the greed train and went with it. Am I surprised.... No. As a car guy, I've read Jalop for a long time (I love it BTW). Are they egotistical and holier than thou (Gawker as a whole)? You're damn right. Do I expect anything less from Gawker... No. They play to the masses and pray to the dollar, nothing less, so I don't hold them to a higher standard. Do I use parenthesis too much?? Yes..... I just consider all this a sign of the Mike Judge apocalypse...

/endrant.... Wow, I forgot how much fun ranting was....

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/y0O7_3o3BrI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/y0O7_3o3BrI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

I still hope this is fake... I for one, stand against crap like this. Call me old school, but I won't bow to some tabloid culture that seems to want to permeate rumor and destroy others just to make a buck.

/tinfoil...... again.

//not sure
21 Apr 2010 ~ 6:48am Snarkasm I say again - Giz was trying to do the right thing by releasing his name. It gives him external publicity so Apple can't just fire him quietly. If he's out of a job in a week, there will be a lot of people who ask why Apple fired a guy because he made one mistake. Add to it that it certainly looks like theft and a bunch of people just banded together to make a ton of profit and he looks less and less to blame.

That said, if his qualifications and his skills are good enough, it won't matter to companies that his 4G was the one that got loose. There's hardly another phone hardware company in the world that has clamps like Apple does - leaks and authorized early information come out all the time. He'll have no problem finding a job; the internet will be the only source of stigma.
21 Apr 2010 ~ 11:26am Bandrik

Snarkasm wrote:

He'll have no problem finding a job; the internet will be the only source of stigma.

I sure hope so, for his sake. I think you may have a good point. It may help him spread some of the blame around instead of taking it all himself. Maybe it's a blessing in a very strange disguise.

As for the "it's not finders keepers, it's theft", that does sound fairly accurate. According to my law class at Purdue University (take with a grain of salt), if you find lost property and do wish to keep it, you are required to make and show due diligence to return it to the owner. This can include posting fliers around the place it was lost, an ad in the newspaper's lost and found, and so on. After a reasonable time has passed (xx number of days), only then may you keep it.

The Californian law sounds very similar. Right or wrong to do it, whoever "sold" the rights to see the phone to Gizmodo may be in some trouble with the law.
23 Apr 2010 ~ 9:30am drasnor
23 Apr 2010 ~ 9:34am _k ^+babilliontrillzonfufftillion
23 Apr 2010 ~ 9:43am AlexDeGruven Lufthansa is now one of my favorite companies in the world.
23 Apr 2010 ~ 10:14am Thrax +rep, Lufthansa.
23 Apr 2010 ~ 10:33am mirage All this for "a" phone? People, are you out of your mind?
26 Apr 2010 ~ 5:36pm Cliff_Forster I suppose if Apple has a problem the first amedment is no longer valid? WTF!
26 Apr 2010 ~ 5:53pm Thrax It's not a first amendment issue at all. Gizmodo committed a crime in the state of California by failing to return lost property with a known owner. Chen is the EIC, he calls the shots, he takes the fall.

//EDIT: RELEVANT STATUTES

Californiaâ€™s penal code, section 485:

One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft.

Californiaâ€™s civil code, section 2080.1:

If the owner is unknown or has not claimed the property, the person saving or finding the property shall, if the property is of the value of one hundred dollars ($100) or more, within a reasonable time turn the property over to the police department of the city or city and county, if found therein, or to the sheriffâ€™s department of the county if found outside of city limits, and shall make an affidavit, stating when and where he or she found or saved the property, particularly describing it.

Chen and Gizmodo published an article clearly demonstrating that they were aware of the rightful owner of the product. They not only failed to return the item, they destroyed the product by dismantling it.
26 Apr 2010 ~ 5:56pm Cliff_Forster

Thrax wrote:

It's not a first amendment issue at all. Jason Chen and Gizmodo committed a felony in the state of California by failing to return a property known to qualify as stolen under California statutes.

And that requires siezure of all his computers?

Come on man.....

Prosecute him for the theft and destruction of property then. Sue Gizmodo civily if necessary, but thats not what this is about. What they are doing is looking to plug the leak.
26 Apr 2010 ~ 5:58pm Thrax There's this cool thing called evidence. It's stored on PCs these days.
26 Apr 2010 ~ 6:02pm Cliff_Forster

Thrax wrote:

There's this cool thing called evidence. It's stored on PCs these days.

Yeah, but do you really think that is what this is about? Come on man. They are looking to finger the source of the leak, and find out who got paid for the phone.

Moraly wrong what they did, perhaps, but he is protected as a journalist to obtain information and protect his source. I'm sorry, there is a much bigger issue here then petty theft of an electronic devise.
26 Apr 2010 ~ 6:03pm Thrax Petty theft? Please. Ten grand large changed hands to put that phone in the Giz HQ, and that was just the highest bidder.
26 Apr 2010 ~ 6:22pm BuddyJ The definition of reasonable time will come into play. I could be wrong but I believe Giz claimed they immediately tried to contact Apple and were having a hard time getting through the red tape that is corporate communications. That might grant them some leeway.

But I don't think there's much they can say regarding their disassembly of the product in question. Seems like vandalism or something.

//edit for Cliff's sake
26 Apr 2010 ~ 6:24pm Thrax Let us not forget the article they published about the gentleman who lost the iPhone within one week of acquiring it.
26 Apr 2010 ~ 6:26pm Cliff_Forster

Thrax wrote:

Petty theft? Please. Ten grand large changed hands to put that phone in the Giz HQ, and that was just the highest bidder.

Slippery slope my friend. What next? Icrontic gets a copy of a game early through some semi nerarious methodology (friend at the developer forwards us a copy under the table) We post impressions of it, and then the cops show up and say, where is your PC, there was a game theft, how did you obtain this, yadda, yadda.

Its an exchange of information, yes, its illegal for the "source" to sell his tester, but, once again, Gizmodo is protected under the US first amendment, and the journalist does not have to tell anyone where he got that thing. Mistake they made was making some BS up about where they obtained it to begin with. A real journalist would have just said, "we obtained" and been done with it. I've been on record as saying, if Gizmodo did anything really awful in this whole thing it was releasing that guys name.

Listen, I'm not saying they did not having it coming, but what about the greater good?
26 Apr 2010 ~ 6:30pm Thrax Cliff, your impression of the law is wrong, I'm afraid.

You keep citing journalist protections, but you're evidently unaware that shield laws protecting reporters, editors and their outlets from revealing their sources are not federally mandated. Go look it up. Shield laws are handled on a state-by-state basis, and California offers no protection for criminal activity under shield laws.

And for the record: It's not even a good analogy, because we're not interested in partaking in (semi-)nefarious methodology, or publishing material we don't have a right to. We've had several opportunities to go to press with big stories like this, but we don't because we respect the relationship we have with other companies.
26 Apr 2010 ~ 6:41pm Cliff_Forster

Thrax wrote:

Cliff, your impression of the law is wrong, I'm afraid.

You keep citing journalist protections, but you're evidently unaware that shield laws protecting reporters, editors and their outlets from revealing their sources are not federally mandated. Go look it up. Shield laws are handled on a state-by-state basis, and California offers no protection for criminal activity under shield laws.

And for the record: It's not even a good analogy, because we're not interested in partaking in (semi-)nefarious methodology, or publishing material we don't have a right to. We've had several opportunities to go to press with big stories like this, but we don't because we respect the relationship we have with other companies.

Thats Icrontic's prerogative, and I completely respect that, but...

At the end of the day, Freedom of the press is established to help the press operate on a different level so they can obtain vital information, and protect the sources where that information comes from.

Gizmodo did a piss poor job, I'm not arguing that they didn't, but I'm still taking the stance that this is about Apple intimidating journalists that may want to print anything before their paid lackey Mossberg does...

Seizure of Gizmodo's PC's over this is overreaching their authority.
26 Apr 2010 ~ 6:55pm BlackHawk Explaining The Shield Law Gizmodo Is Using In Their Search-And-Seize Case

Gizmodo is arguing that California police stomped all over the reporters' shield law, which protects them from revealing anonymous sources, when they stormed editor Jason Chen's home and seized a bunch of his stuff.

But let's make this clear from the beginning: If the state court can somehow prove that Chen broke the law by knowingly buying a "stolen" (rather than lost) iPhone, the shield law isn't going to help them.

It doesn't matter that Chen is a blogger. Even if he was a reporter at the New York Times, the shield law protects journalists from revealing sources. It doesn't protect them from breaking the law.

Continued
26 Apr 2010 ~ 8:43pm Cliff_Forster

Black Hawk wrote:

Explaining The Shield Law Gizmodo Is Using In Their Search-And-Seize Case

I'm starting to see the point to the degree where Gizmodo essentially fucked themselves by coming out and saying they obtained stolen goods. If they protect their source up front maybe it never becomes an issue. The bar stool story was totally irrelevant to the story, yet they published it.

Dummy's.

So, I'll concede that there may be some merit to your argument that they had a reasonable warrant to issue given what we knew because they more or less told us.

Now, if Gizmodo never publishes where they obtained the device, then where are we? I wonder if the cops still get the warrant? We will never know...

Okay, I'm with you, fuck Gizmodo, but not so much because they aquired an Apple item in a shady way, fuck them for being so arrogant and sloppy in their handling of it. I mean, if your going to be a crook, do it right!! (like Intel)