Lost cause
Yesterday tech blog Gizmodo published a story in which it claimed to have acquired o prototype of the next manifestation of Apple's iPhone after it had been left lying around in a bar. This unlikely story looks like it's true, and the site is extracting maximum value from its acquisition by publishing the story about how some Apple software engineer got drunk in charge of this device and left it on a bar stool.
As we all know, Apple's whole PR strategy is based around keeping a veil of secrecy around launches and benefiting from the frenzy of speculation this information vacuum generates. Of course this wouldn't happen if its products weren't very popular too, but an Orwellian approach to controlling the flow of information is critical.
So the mind boggles at how this profound school-boy error could happen. We assume when Apple gave this prototype to the engineer, it expected it to be used in the wild, as it had been cunningly disguised as a current iPhone, but by doing so it left itself exposed to the possibility of just this sort of thing happening. Seems most un Apple-like.
The question now is what is Apple going to do about it? The cat is out of the bag, but there is considerable speculation that its army of slavering lawyers might be set on Gizmodo. The main reason for this is that Gizmodo paid $5,000 for the prototype from the chap who found it. Nick Denton, the British owner of Gizmodo publisher Gawker Media, confirmed the payment via Twitter.
Some of the best journalistic scoops in recent months have been paid-for. It's standard practice for tabloids to pay for kiss-and-tells, and the expenses scandal that dragged the image of UK politicians even further though the mud came after the possessor of the information auctioned it to UK newspapers.
But Apple is not some politician caught with their face in the trough, or a celebrity with their face in something else. It's a massive multinational that lost an important piece of property which, instead of being given back to it, was sold-on. Can it now be considered stolen? Gizmodo seems to think so, as it conceded in its reply to a legal letter from Apple asking for its property back.
There's no question that Apple could do some serious damage to Gizmodo if it chose to unleash the full wrath of its legal department onto it, but it needs to walk a PR tightrope here. What would it achieve by such an attack? The images are already out there and Gizmodo has now committed to return the device. Can Apple be sure that even its most devoted followers wouldn't turn on it if it victimised a popular gadget site, merely for giving its readers what they want?
