A Next Generation iPhone Walks Into A Bar…
by Volker Weber
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a guy walks into a bar. No, a guy walks into a bar with an iPhone. No, a guy walks into a bar with a next-generation iPhone disguised as a current-generation iPhone. No, a guy walks into a bar with his next-generation iPhone disguised as a current-generation iPhone and leaves it there. Okay, we’ve never heard anything like this before.
Very good reporting from Techcrunch. Read the whole story.
Comments
mit video: http://gizmodo.com/5520164/this-is-apples-next-iphone
http://www.n-tv.de/technik/Das-Maerchen-vom-iPhone-4G-article832487.html
I like this quote from here:
http://gizmodo.com/5520438/
"[...] Apple's legendary impenetrable security, breached by the power of German beer and one single human error."
The question is, who benefits from this story. I would say Apple, and to a lesser extent Gizmodo. Apple needs the publicity in the onslaught of Android devices. The 3GS is a very long in the tooth. So I think this was planted.
I don't think this is the device that is going to be revealed at the end of June. The bezel, especially the buttons don't look like anything Apple would sell. Everybody is a little bit excited, and then in two months, they can be excited again.
I tend to think it was planted, but honestly it doesn't matter. I think it is so easy for Apple to spin this to its advantage, it might as well have been planted. Create a whole bunch of buzz, get a preview of how people react to the different aspects of the new phone (the old "run it up the flagpole and see who salutes" ploy), then tweak it and release it to a whole bunch more buzz when it is different as everybody tries to decide whether the first was a fake or not yet again.
I am not sure if this was a plant or just a guy having a really bad day (watch his LinkedIN page to see how well Apple takes it) but I think it was really low for Gizmodo to out him. We didn't need to know his name. I really think that should have been protected.
It works the other way around. Apple would have found him anyway. By outing him, his fortune is watched by a lot of people. This might give him some protection.
Whatever the background shenanigans and underlying motives by all concerned, I still think the way Gizmodo handled this stinks.
I find it hard to believe it’s an Apple plant, as that’s not been part of their M.O. to date. Then again, it’s equally hard to believe they’d let a junior engineer out of the building with an iPhone 4 prototype.
Oh I just don’t know what to think… :-D
I don't really care how Gizmodo handles this. Suffice to say that I would never do it this way. I am in for the long run. That means I get new stuff nobody should know about and get to play with it. Never break a secret, never out an informer. Works very well for me. I even ask whether to give photo credits or protect the guilty. ;-)
The general design (brick-like, glass/ceramic back, ...) looks final to me although I'm pretty sure the final design will be seamless again and the battery etc. non-accessible. The buttons seem a bit weird - I like them. I cannot imagine them being used for zooming or as trigger as the camera would be at the very right bottom in natural photographer handling then.
... it's just all part of the Apple marketing ... :)
