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Comment by epochwolf | Hacker News Reader

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.

I like the new design.

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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?

The leaked photos of the iPad that Engadget posted the night before the launch were definitely not fake.

Blurry pics in a case the night before and a physical device a couple months out are quite different.

It's extremely, extremely unlikely that this was done on purpose.

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.

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.

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.

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.

But what ace could they possibly have left up their sleeve?

OLED screen? Their competitors are already there and userland's reaction has been decidedly mixed.

I honestly can't think of anything else. Pony?

Larger screen/touch-area. More networks. PixelQi screen.

New form factors -- keyboard, flip/clamshell.

Surprising internal specs -- storage, speed.

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

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