I was very skeptical of the Engadget shots, but it's hard to argue with the depth of detail in this article. If it isn't the final design, I can't see it being too different.
OTOH, if the prototype is legit I wonder if Gizmodo will come to regret publishing the article. Even assuming the phone was 'found' and not stolen as Gruber implies in this morning's Daring Fireball post, the article seems like a pretty clear violation of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. Gizmodo knew it was a secret prototype, who it belonged to, and that it had been lost or stolen. I'd love to hear a lawyer's opinion, though.
I think all Gruber meant was that Giz knew the seller didn't own it so it was akin to knowingly buying stolen merchandise. Plus one Engadget blogger (who I think is a lawyer) pointed out on twitter that CA requires the finder to remit the property to the police or original owner, who in this case was fairly obvious to the finder given that they knew gadget blogs would want it.
This is what Gizmodo wants. In order for Apple to get it back, they need to state it's their property. If Apple doesn't state this, it could easily be anybody's including a manufacturer in China who made a knock off.
I'm not sure that's a very wise tradeoff by Gizmodo. I think it's pretty clear this belongs to Apple, it's just not entirely clear if it's an accurate representation of the 4G iPhone.
Even so, couldn't Apple drag their feet and not actually confirm it's theirs until two months from now when they unveil it, and then sue the pants off of Gizmodo?
24 hours ago we all thought it was a fake, so it's not "clearly Apple's". Until Apple claims it, it's not theirs. Could Gizmodo call and say: "hey we think this is yours, if so, let us know, and well give it back" sure, they could and probably will.
Yeah, Gizmodo might get sued, they know this. Gawker takes risks like this and it's worth it to them.
I agree, paying for the 'lost' prototype seems rather dubious. The story about finding the phone in a bar may simply be cover to protect the finder's identity, but assuming it was true, who's to say that it was 'found' and not pick-pocketed? Whoever lost the phone has every incentive to claim it was stolen, and it would be hard to prove otherwise.
I wonder if Apple had an employee "lose" the phone on purpose. This is a great way to stir up some press and give people a preview without being official about it.
Yeah, it's an interesting theory... but historically speaking they have always had pretty airtight pre-launch situations, aside from the usual fake photos/screenshots, right?
Why is that? To me it is extremely, extremely unlikely that some important person randomly "forgot" their new prototype in a random bar. Apple has tricky marketing/market research tactics. I wouldn't be surprised. They thrive on hype.
The timing is pretty interesting. Happens less than 24 hours before the embargo on the HTC Incredible is lifted which by all accounts seems to be an excellent device.
If Apple were as creative/exciting in their security processes as in their design processes they'd intentionally release a variety of misleading "prototypes." In fact, mightn't this be a cooler corporate image... to be messing with the bloggers' minds - rather_than/instead_of being so heavy-handed with those who publish leaks.
It'd be a lot more fun to laugh with a corporation than to have to choose between fanboy and hateboy camps, IMHO.
But Apple doesn't seem to have too much problem "stirring up press" with their product launches.
If anything this might result in "Segway Syndrome" where all the excitement happens long (well, two months or so) before the product is available, and by the time it launches it's yesterday's news.
I like the new design too, but blurry pics alone would've gotten everyone talking. (worked just fine for the 3G's design, which iirc was leaked months ahead of time.)
I don't see what Apple would hope to gain by blowing the reveal on all the features that came from this leak (battery, size, material, resolution, front-camera, camera sensor size, capacity).
What exactly does this leave Steve to reveal? Let OS4 and these specs stew for two months and anything this side of the pizza-delivering-unicorn will draw yawns in June.
Not saying this is likely, but: what if this is an older less-featured prototype, or a design/features direction they're not going, or the low-end model of a batch of several new models? Leaking this could create complacency in competitors, or even effectively lower expectations among fanboys (making the ultimate release more surprising). Compare: Apple's misdirection on iPad pricing which helped make actual prices seem lower.
Though I think it unlikely, an announcement of Verizon support would definitely do it for the US audience, good call.
More screen changes seem unlikely though [1]. The density/resolution is already a huge, attention-grabbing update. Apple tends to parcel those updates out.
E.g. they didn't jump straight into HD video capture. They released a slightly-better camera first.
New form factors strike me as about as likely as a convertible tablet MacBook or an attached-keyboard iPad update.
The internal specs... Apple doesn't talk about those much. Surely it'll be even-faster with more flash. But beyond confirmation of an Apple-designed SoC [2], they wouldn't even mention those specs. Let alone hype them to the press.
[1] Does PixelQi even have samples at the pixel-density the update is boasting? Let alone at volume? I honestly don't know.
[2] Something that would have been spoiled by handing the hardware to Gizmodo btw
I quite like this design, much more so than the current and previous iPhones. I think the hard edges and flat surfaces work much better on electronic devices, especially if you're going to be interacting with it on a desk at some point.
I think that design philospohy is one of the reasons I prefer the look of MacBooks over pretty much any other laptop I've ever seen. Clean, hard lines with an almost sort of industrial look. Laptops from Gateway, HP, Toshiba, Acer and other manufacturers are starting to use this sloping angular look and mixing of different textures and finishes and the resulting product just looks cheap in my opinion.
I don't currently own any Apple products and my laptop is an Acer and while it performs wonderfully, it's just not very attractive. I know that shouldn't matter in something like a laptop, where you should be concerned with form over function, but I'd gladly a slightly less robust machine if it appealed to me more aesthetically.
If this is indeed a 4G protoyope, I'll be interested to see how much the design changes before the production version.
We all knew this summer's iPhone would be better, faster, cooler so at this point Apple's legal response is more interesting to me, especially since money changed hands for this transaction. Is Gizmodo willing to commit suicide for an exclusive? Based on Apple's response it might help determine if this was deliberate or not as well.
If this was not an intentional leak, well... There'll be hell to pay.
This has to be by far the earliest and deepest leak Apple has had in the Steve Jobs II era, if not in its history. New iPods have occasionally been blurrily snapped a week or so before the unveiling; ambiguous new MacBook chassis parts have been leaked from factories weeks before the reveal, even the iPad was caught in a photo of its lockup the night before its unveiling.
But here we have a fairly radical redesign of the flagship iPhone, with the actual prototype hardware in full possession of a gadget blog fully two months before it was to be formally shown to the public.
The mood around One Infinite Loop can't be a pleasant one this morning.
Good question. Lately, with the whole dev license agreement thing, it seems like they couldn't care less who they upset. But I think that that instance and this one (if Apple do choose to hurt Gizmodo) provide bad press to a relatively small part of potential Apple buyers. It's obvious everyone at Giz either loves or hates Apple so I don't think their readers' opinions would change much.
I do think that Engadget took the high rode by passing this opportunity up. Yea, it seems like a big scoop now but in 3 months it won't mean anything.
I suggest that "crushing Gizmodo" wouldn't do a bit of damage to Apple. People already talk heavily about Apple's behavior regarding their non-notebook mobile devices (and respective software). People who don't take part in the scrutiny and worship of the industry don't give a shit. Even most of those in the latter category don't care enough to make a difference, or they massage the idea in their minds until they can see it as justified.
Why would this be any different, especially given that it's in the case of a company that knowingly partook in illegal trade?
There have been hundreds of phones with front-facing cameras and yet actually using video conferencing still hasn't caught on. People like the idea more than actually using it.
True. But nobody can legitimize a product/feature like Apple.
Media players, smartphones, tablets, etc. were all around before Apple's take on them, but once King Jobs lets loose with the golden touch all of the sudden the entire product space comes alive. It's a little creepy.
That's the benefit of building and protecting a strong brand. HTC for example may sell one specific model of Android device with a camera but who knows it even exists? They don't advertise. They have dozens of different models that look very similar. This makes it difficult for consumers to identify a feature they want, identify the model of device it's available on, and obtain it. Apple traditionally rips down a lot of those barriers by offering a simple, heavily advertised, product line that is easy to obtain.
Actually from a 20 year olds's perspective it really HAS set off a video call revolution. Video chat is way bigger than it's ever been and I think you can pretty easily draw the line directly to MB owning college kids. iChat was the first time video chat was easy and didn't look and sound like total crap. Skype's is still a disaster in comparison.
Skype/iChat Video is used constantly by very large groups of people all over the world: expats, and people who truly cannot afford to travel far (developing countries "middle" class, at internet cafes).
I'd say this is a prototype hardware unit. The sides don't look finished, not with large, visible creases. There's no way they'll go from the smoothness of the MBP & iPad to something far less elegant with large visible gaps.
If you look at the full-size images at Gizmodo the entire side metal area all the way around sticks out from the flush casing pretty noticeably. I think it's a prototype case or some kind of unfinished disguise. I forget where Ive was interviewed (perhaps in Objectified?) but he mentioned how much he stresses over the tightness of two joints and how perfectly flush he always wants them to be. I'd really be surprised if this were the final design, I'd guess that the top and bottom are final versions but the side wrapper will be a unibody-style, fully aluminum case.
I agree, it just doesn't look finished IMHO and while the design is nice design it's a bit of a step backwards from the extreme minimalism apple have used in previous iphones and MBP
That screen will most definitely be 960x480. Apple prides itself on keeping the iPhone dev simple, so the simplest thing to do is simply upscale everything 2x. Apps with old bitmap resources will still look ok and in order to take advantage of the new screen, developers will simply have to update their apps with higher-res images.
Edit: Sorry for the brainfart, I did mean 960x640 (current screen x2).
I still see that high a resolution as very unlikely (assuming you meant the Gruber number of 640x960).
The iPhone 2G–3GS all have a 163 ppi pixel density, while the iPad has only 132 ppi. Doubling each dimension of the iPhone's 320x480 pixels would result in four times the pixel information across the same area—making for a massive 652 ppi, nearly five times the density of the iPad, and well over twice what is generally considered sufficient for print resolution.
Much more likely is a 480x720 display, which would yield about 360 ppi.
Good point. If I were in their position, the first thing I would have done was to pull the SIM card to stop Apple from killing the device. You'd think that Apple would have these constantly sending their GPS coordinates out so you could have tracked it the moment it left the Apple campus.
However, in this case I think Apple has a pretty clear idea of where the device currently is :).
Apple has been working on resolution independence in its OS for several versions now. Didn't make it into Tiger, Leopard, or Snow Leopard. Maybe we're finally going to see the fruits of resolution independence in iPhone OS first?
Looks like they tried to unify the design with that of the MacBooks and the iMacs, but to me it ends up looking decidedly less Apple. It reminds me of a generic digital camera design, or even an external hard drive.
My guess is that making laptops and desktops look like digital cameras makes them stand out as sturdy and simple, while designing a phone with similar goals just makes it fit in.
"... the new iPhone is so miniaturized and packed that there's no room for the tapered, curved surfaces... "
Where is Apple's Human Factors guy? Tapered end is one of the best ways to deal with the variates in hand sizes, reducing hand strain after long period of holding, and making it appear to be much thinner (and sexier).
I bet the volume buttons are going to be multi-fuction. They appear to be spaced far enough apart to be useful as action buttons in games. If you hold an iPhone in landscape you can get a pretty good feel on how that could work.
Keep in mind that we still have a few months before the official announcement, if the past three releases are anything to go by. Also, this unit was found in a case to disguise it as a regular 3GS iPhone, and the seams may help it fit better in such a case.
Normally, I'd say he'd be pissed as hell but given his recent abnormal behavior, it's hard to tell. I'm more interested in seeing the person who lost this prototype's reaction.
OTOH, if the prototype is legit I wonder if Gizmodo will come to regret publishing the article. Even assuming the phone was 'found' and not stolen as Gruber implies in this morning's Daring Fireball post, the article seems like a pretty clear violation of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. Gizmodo knew it was a secret prototype, who it belonged to, and that it had been lost or stolen. I'd love to hear a lawyer's opinion, though.