Another Apple Employee Loses Another iPhone Prototype at Another Bar

So, after an Apple employee lost an iPhone 4 prototype in a bar — a prototype that wound up in Gizmodo’s hands and caused all kinds of trouble — it appears that at least one Apple employee took the opportunity to not learn his lesson and accordingly lost an iPhone 5 prototype (we think) in a bar, CNET reports. Now as bizarrely coincidental as this sounds, there are a few poetic coincidences we can’t draw. It’s not the same bar, almost certainly not the same employee and, worst of all, it hasn’t resulted in any fun information for us, the unwashed masses.

The phone was apparently lost at a bar in the Mission District of San Francisco, Cave 22. While Apple has been going to all lengths to try and get this thing back, understandably, its current whereabouts are unknown, to us at least. There appears to be a chance that it was sold on Craigslist for a scant $200, in which case, neither party may be aware that what they have is special. If that’s the case, either the iPhone 5 is pretty similar to the iPhone 4, the guy who found it was really drunk (or needs to get with the times) or it wasn’t actually an iPhone 5 prototype. Still, maybe some interesting information will surface.

Apple did manage to track the phone, electronically, to a house in Bernal Heights, but when questioned, the man who lived there denied any knowledge of the incident. While he freely admitted he had been at the bar the night the phone was lost, he claimed to have no idea where it was, even when presented with an offer for no-questions-asked cash in exchange for its return.

PCMag contacted a San Francisco Police Department spokesman to see if he could confirm or deny whether a police report was filed. He couldn’t. He did say, however, that while it was common enough to work along side a company’s private security during theft investigation, this was the only time he could remember that company representatives went along with uniformed officers into a private residence. So, there probably is a police report.

Regardless, it’s unlikely that the lost iPhone will be featured in an online teardown and evaluation considering that Gizmodo only narrowly avoided facing charges for their iPhone 4 shenanigans. That threat of legal action, especially by guys who have fought this same case once before, is probably a decent deterrent. Although they weren’t able to win last time, they probably have a pretty good idea how to do it better next time around. In the meantime, sit tight and wait so that when the iPhone 5 is announced, we can see the hype was overblown together.

(via PCMag)

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Eric Limer