the tindog coffeehouse

An Apple employee supposedly loses a prototype of the upcoming 4th-generation iPhone after a night of heavy drinking to celebrate his birthday. A stranger then sells it to tech blog Gizmodo for $5000. Gizmodo makes millions from all the publicity. And now police have gotten involved, breaking in to Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s house and confiscating several computers and other property that may have been “used as the means of convicting a felony”.

Not to defend Gizmodo’s actions, but I just have to state the obvious:

It was only an iPhone.

A phone that was going to be publicly announced in two months anyway and whose operating system has already been announced. In other words, it wasn’t that big of a story to begin with except to the tech blogs and die-hard Apple fanboys. But because of Apple’s extreme overreaction, it’s become a big story, and not the kind that benefits Steve Jobs and Co.

Not that it’ll hurt their bottom line in the short run, but it certainly adds fuel to the fire for those who criticize Apple for being overly controlling and secretive. That kind of approach to doing business may have been tolerated at one time, but as Android continues to mature, I have to wonder how long it’ll be before a significant number of customers go Google for good.

Previously:
13 things I would change about the iPhone
‘How Apple Plays Upon Our Insecurities’