It was in all probability Apple’s most well-known safety breach within the firm’s 47-year historical past, and it was no less than partially fueled by alcohol.
On Thursday, March 18, 2010, a drunk Apple software program engineer named Grey Powell left an iPhone 4 prototype on a barstool inside Redwood Metropolis’s Connoisseur Haus Staudt beer corridor. This seemingly innocuous act would ultimately end in a $5,000 money buy of stolen property, a police raid and accusations of extortion from then-CEO Steve Jobs.
It might additionally set off a whole media frenzy that may carry the world’s consideration to the bar, which was positioned solely a mere 20 miles from Apple’s Cupertino headquarters.
A terrific SFGate article particulars the story of how the Apple engineer by accident left the iPhone 4 prototype on the bar, how proprietor Brian Hogan mistook it for an iPhone 3GS, how Hogan tried to get it again to its proprietor, and the chaotic frenzy that happened when individuals realized what the gadget was, how its {hardware} was totally different from earlier generations, what the prototype is likely to be value, and what the gadget indicated as to the way forward for Apple’s {hardware} (particularly its antenna module).
The story took its subsequent flip when Gizmodo acquired the prototype, Apple’s authorized workforce turned concerned in efforts to get it again, and the query of the primary modification versus mental property got here into play.
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By way of SFGATE, Gizmodo, The New York Occasions, CNET, and Enterprise Insider
