Apple's 4th-generation iPhone revealed

Gawker Media, which owns Gizmodo, published a statement saying the raid was unlawful because of journalistic protections. Chen works from home, so his house should be protected as newsrooms are, the statement says.

I do find this concerning...
 
I don't think being a journalist places you above the law. If Ca law forbids what he did, which according to the reports it does, then being a journalist by itself does not give you exemption from that law. You may not agree with the law but it is the law and until that changes you can be held for commission of the felony if you violate it.

PI's are under the same legal restrictions. The difference is that when doing PI work you rarely get caught dancing in the gray areas of the law because PI's don't brag about it. Journalists, on the other hand aren't journalists unless they do brag about their discoveries. What Chen and Gizmodo did was to brag about how they came upon the device, admitting guilt in the CA law. They felt they had to brag about the illegal acquisition in order to prove it's validity. Unfortunately their open admission got them discovered in the felony. The defense of journalists are above the law is really weak and won't hold up in court. They better get another lawyer.

The new lawyer should defend his clients on the basis that they did make " reasonable and prudent" attempts to return the device and were ignored by the lawful owners. The publication of that effort and what it was they were trying to return is not a crime (IMO). They also paid money for what is defined under California law as "stolen Property" they should never have done that either. They also opened up the device and attempted to dissect it which may also be a violation of another law.

Lots of lessons to be learned from this.

Once the criminal aspects of this are settled, then Apple may have a civil suit against them whether or not they are judged guilty by the criminal courts.

No doubt this could turn ugly (referencing diogen's personal prejudices against the CEO of Apple). Nobody likes a big guy bullying a little guy even when the little guy committed a felony against the big guy. This is why jurists are heavily screened to be sure they hold no prejudices in the case.
 
Don,

You're exactly right. Journalists can't be forced to divulge their sources but they still are subject to all the civil and criminal laws that the rest of us are.
 
I think the only thing Gizmodo did wrong was pay $5000 for the phone. If they were given it for free then I think it would be a non issue.

I got to be honest, Gizmodo's report on the iPhone has me more excited about the iPhone 4 then I was before. I think ultimately they did a service to Apple as it has people excited.
 
Sounds like "police state action" to me....everybody getting worked up over a Cellphone.
Number one-apple should have never allowed that device outside the complex period.
The software engineer or whatever he is-did what millions do everyday...lost his phone-ok so we need to call in the Feds and kick in doors?
 
Sounds like "police state action" to me....everybody getting worked up over a Cellphone.
Number one-apple should have never allowed that device outside the complex period.
The software engineer or whatever he is-did what millions do everyday...lost his phone-ok so we need to call in the Feds and kick in doors?

Thank you, Apple sits on the REACT board
 
Sounds like "police state action" to me....everybody getting worked up over a Cellphone.
Number one-apple should have never allowed that device outside the complex period.
The software engineer or whatever he is-did what millions do everyday...lost his phone-ok so we need to call in the Feds and kick in doors?

I agree that this is a bit much but in order to properly tes ta cell phone you have to take it out in thee real world and try to use it in a variety of environments.

All this is not so much about a cell phone as it is about protecting intellectual property and making the announcement of release on their own terms.
 
It is Apples job to protect its secrets and in this case they didn't do too well.

Like I said before, I think this leak actually helped Apple because now everyone is talking about the new iPhone and saying how much they want one.

Gizmodo was just doing as it always does and that is trying to bring out the tech news first. While Gizmodo gutted the unit and gave away some of the surprises, I am willing to bet there is more under the hood they didn't uncover.

The only thing I can see which Gizmodo did wrong was pay for the phone. But as the story goes the origional finder tried returning the phone to Apple, but Apple said that it wasn't theirs and hung up on the guy thinking it was a prank.
 
I haven't heard one peep from anyone around here talking about the new iphone... all I hear people talk about with phones these days is Android. People I know with iphones are bored with them...but I guess this new phone will fix that.
 
Well, I don't know if Apple intentionally leaked this phone to drum up hype, but hopefully they're putting a method in place to measure the sales metrics of a product release that was 'leaked' vs. the sales metrics of their normal 'secrecy' product realeases. Maybe this type of 'leaked' hype actually works if you do it (only) every now and then.
 
Digiblur

I think you need to get out more. People like us who love to tinker and experiment are not in the majority. People who just want the thing to work are the major buying force. This is why iPhone system, rather the apple system of the "I" products is so much a success.
 

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