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Comment by kevinh | Hacker News Reader

Asking around at the bar and calling Apple isn't a reasonable and just attempt to return the property to its owner? Let's not forget that the guy who found the iPhone was in a bar, and, most likely, had impaired though processes. I'm pretty sure most people would agree he went above and beyond the call of duty attempting to return the product to its owner.

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Lets see. He checked with a couple of people sitting next to him, put the phone in his pocket, mucked around with it, found the owner's facebook page, and then sold it for $5K. No, I don't think he made a reasonable effort to return it at all.

It's out and out theft.

Not if you know where the owner's address is. You can just drop it off at their headquarters. Or at any apple store. OR you can mail it to them. So no, obviously not.

How about posting on the guy's facebook page "Hey I got ur phone."

...and calling Apple isn't a reasonable and just attempt to return the property to its owner...

Calling AppleCare - Apple's customer support - apparently? No, it is not reasonable. Going above and beyond the call of duty would have been stuff like - leaving contact information at the bar, so if someone comes looking for it they can get in touch with you; calling Apple corporate (you can find the number on apple.com/contact ) and demanding to speak with someone in charge; having access to the guy's Facebook information, you can try contacting him directly; and so on and so forth.

The "finder's" actions are a lousy cop out, after which they started shopping the phone around to tech blogs.

Selling it to Gawker for $5,000 is the opposite of returning it to its owner. There's no way around this really.

Yes, but thats on the guy who sold it. Is Gawker responsible for this? If anything, they could argue that Apple owes them $5000 for getting back their device :)

In absolute fairness Steve Jobs email address is publicly well known; Im sure an email to that would have elicited a response..

EDIT: Im sorry, why is this not a good idea? Clearly calling Apple care is going to be pointless if you have a secret prototype in your hand. Going to the management seems logical.

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