Hey guys, it’s Greg with Apple Explained, and today we’re going to explore the history
of the leaked iPhone 4 prototype.
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So if you’re one of my younger viewers, you may not know much about this story since
it took place eight years ago, but you need to understand that what we’re about to discuss
is considered by most people as the biggest tech leak in history.
And that probably sounds impossible since Apple is known for being the most secretive
company in the world, I mean, they have multiple locks on labs with unreleased products, they
have armored doors, they constantly change system passwords, and they even have their
own security force patrolling their campus at all times for intruders and spies.
And if that wasn’t enough, every prototype they built was kept under surveillance with
restricted access only to people who were directly included in the products development.
And this is why most Apple employees are just as shocked as we are when the company introduces
a new product.
There was even a story about a worker being fired for showing an unreleased iPad to another
Apple employee.
So it’s pretty hard to imagine that a super secret iPhone prototype would appear on a
random bar stool twenty miles away from Apple’s campus.
But that just proves that no matter how hard a company tries to be perfect, it’ll eventually
make a mistake since companies are just made up of humans, and humans are imperfect.
So this mistake had something to do with an unreleased iPhone 4 prototype, a tech news
website called Gizmodo, and a very angry Steve Jobs.
So all of this happened back in April 2010 when the 3GS was the most recent iPhone model.
An employee named Gray Powell was responsible for field testing an unreleased iPhone prototype
which would later become the iPhone 4.
Now Gray was a twenty-seven year old Apple engineer who had been with the company for
two years, and this whole event actually happened on his birthday.
Now keep in mind that most of this story is based on what Gray Powell said happened, so
we don’t really know if all of this is 100% true, but we’ll at least get the main idea.
So it was April 2010 and Powell went out to celebrate his birthday with drinks at a German
bar called Gourmet Haus Staudt.
He had a few drinks and even updated his FaceBook status from the phone he was testing.
Now the person who eventually ended up with possession of the leaked iPhone was named
Brian Hogan who was at the bar with his friend, and he was sitting next to Gray Powell but
obviously didn’t think much about him at the time.
Eventually Gray Powell left the bar and forgot his iPhone prototype on a stool.
So we know Brian ended up with the iPhone prototype, but he wasn’t the guy who found
it.
Someone else sitting on the other side of Powell was the first person who actually saw
the iPhone on the stool.
He asked Brian if it was his iPhone, and Brian said no, but the other guy figured it must’ve
belong to one of Brian’s friends so he handed the phone to him saying, “here, take it,
you don’t want to lose it.”
Now I’m not sure if that’s actually what happened or if Brian made that part up to
remove some responsibility for taking the phone, but either way he ended up with the
phone in his hand, and he didn’t know who it belonged to.
So he asked around the bar, but no one claimed it.
And then he thought, maybe it belong to the guy who was sitting next to him earlier in
the evening, which it did.
Because the person who sat next to him was Gray Powell.
So Brian and his friend stayed at the bar thinking he might come back for it, but Gray
never returned.
Now Gray and Brian never actually talked or introduced each other while sitting at the
bar, so Brian didn’t know anything about the phone’s owner to try and get into contact
with him.
Because of this, Brian figured that if he could get into the phone and look around a
little bit, he’d eventually find the owners name or even their contact information to
return the phone.
So he successfully unlocked the phone and played around with it while waiting.
At this point he just thought it was a normal iPhone 3GS but then it started doing some
strange things.
He tried opening the camera app, but it crashed every time.
There were also two weird looking bar codes on the back, and a model number sticker next
to the volume keys, so the whole thing just seemed a little off.
Now there was six pages of applications on the home screen, and one of them was Facebook.
He launched FaceBook figuring that’d be a good way to identify the owner, and that’s
when he discovered the iPhone belonged to none other than Apple engineer Gray Powell.
Now since Brian knew who the owner was, he left the bar and figured he’d just get into
contact with Gray later on.
But when he woke up the next morning, the phone was dead.
It was bricked remotely through MobileMe, similar to the remote wipe feature offered
by iCloud today.
And it was only then that he realized that there was something strange about the iPhones
design.
The outside of it didn't feel right and he noticed there was a camera on the front.
Some that no iPhone ever had before.
So after messing with it a bit, he managed to take off the fake 3GS case and realized
he was holding a device no one had ever seen before.
Its design was completely different from any iPhone ever made.
With a stainless-steel band around the perimeter and a flat glass back.
At this point he understood how serious the situation was, he was holding an unreleased
iPhone that Apple definitely knew was missing and definitely was looking for.
Brian didn’t want Apple showing up on his doorstep.
So he used his own phone to call Apple support and tried to find someone who was at least
willing to transfer his call to the right person, but that didn’t happen.
Here’s the actual transcript of the conversation that happened between Brian and an AppleCare
representative:
Hello, thanks for calling AppleCare / Hello.
I think I have some kind of iPhone prototype, or something!
/ What?
/ Yeah, it's kinda square, and it doesn't work.
I found it in a bar.
/ Ok!
Thanks for calling.
Obviously no one on the other end took him seriously but who can blame them?
I mean imagine working for Apple and some random guy calls up claiming he has an iPhone
prototype.
I’d probably think it was a prank call or something.
Eventually Brian got a ticket number from Apple so he expected someone to call him back,
but no one ever did.
Now Gray Powell told his boss that he lost the iPhone prototype and that news went straight
to the top.
Steve Jobs was furious.
But Apple had no way of tracking down the iPhone since it was remotely disabled.
And if you’re thinking, “why didn’t they just locate it with Find My iPhone,”
well they couldn’t because the beta release of iOS 4 that the prototype was running didn’t
work with Find My iPhone.
So Apple, and Brian, were totally screwed.
At this point Brian figured if Apple wouldn’t take their own prototype, maybe a media outlet
would.
And maybe they’d pay a lot of money for it.
So he called around to different tech blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo and offered them
the prototype for $10,000.
Apparently there was a bidding war between the two companies and Brian eventually accepted
$5,000 from Gizmodo plus a bonus depending on how much traffic the post received.
Then on the morning of April 20th, Jason Chen from Gizmodo published a post called “This
Is Apple’s Next iPhone.”
It was a hands-on tell all about the prototype they had received from Brian, and Jason Chen
gave a detailed explanation why he believed the device was a legitimate Apple product.
His explanation was so convincing that Jon Gruber, a well known Apple insider, said himself
that the leak was legit.
And this endorsement actually caused Engadget to revise their article about the prototype
to make it sound less skeptical, since all signs were pointing to this leaked iPhone
being the real deal.
Now once the story got out and was validated, every news outlet imaginable ran wild with
their own stories.
But the focus of the coverage always came back to Gizmodo since everyone was wondering
how they got the iPhone in the first place.
Some outlets thought Gizmodo was guilty of receiving stolen property, and all of this
drama quickly got the attention of Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
He actually called Jason Chen himself and said “I want my phone back.”
Now this began a series of emails back and forth between Apple and Gizmodo, but Apple
isn’t a very patient company when it comes to recovering unreleased products, so they
sent a police force called the California Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, whatever
the heck that is, and they actually kicked down Jason Chen’s door, took four computers,
two servers, cameras, and an an iPhone.
Now this was technically legal since they had a warrant, but this move by Apple was
very controversial since journalists are entitled to "shield laws" that protect them from having
newsroom equipment seized.
But no charges were filed against anyone in this case.
Now what’s interesting about this whole ordeal is what Steve Jobs publicly said about
it compared to what he allegedly did about it.
Here’s a clip of him discussing the issue at the All Things Digital conference in 2010
[clip]
So Jobs made it sound like
he wasn’t really too involved and it was all being left up to the district attorney
and whatever ended up happening was fine with him.
But sources close to Jobs described a much different attitude than what he was showing
in that clip.
They said Jobs was furious about the situation and was more involved than anyone else at
Apple, demanding updates on any new developments in the story, no matter how small.
And remember the California Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team?
Well that turned out to be a private security force that was largely funded by Apple, and
supposedly it was Jobs who pushed for that team to get a warrant and forcefully enter
Jason Chen’s home.
Now Apple may have made some morally questionable decisions during this event, but the real
jerks were the people at Gizmodo.
They promised Brian a $3,000 bonus after the post was published, but never followed through.
They also threw him under the bus legally, so he was burdened with all the attorney fees
and court costs that Gizmodo managed to avoid.
Actually, after the whole ordeal was over, Brian ended up losing money and it completely
destroyed his personal life.
If you want to read more about how this effected him you should read his AMA on Reddit from
2013, its a kind’ve sad but really interesting story.
And as for Gray Powell, the Apple engineer who actually lost the iPhone, he continued
to work for Apple and didn’t really face any consequences which is kind’ve surprising,
but hey, I guess everyone makes mistake.
So that is the history of the lost iPhone 4 prototype, and if you want to vote for the
next video topic, don’t forget to subscribe.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.