Why I'm Angry About the iPhone Leak | Hacker News Reader

Why I'm Angry About the iPhone Leak

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49 pointsmrshoe68 comments

Ugh. What a load of shit.

In the grand scheme of things, this whole ordeal is utterly insignificant. Watching these bloggers furiously wipe the foam off their mouths for Apple's sake is pathetic. Nevertheless, Apple brought this upon themselves.

Apple treats their products like they're little Holy Grails. Insane levels of security, meticulously choreographed press releases, dramatic introductions by the electronic Jesus himself. What do you expect to happen when they screw up and leave one at a bar?

In the end, none of it really matters and the world will go on spinning. Apple will sell them like the little hotcakes they are. Gray will go on to have a completely successful career (might not get to have any more pre-release units). And Gawker will go on "creatively" scooping stories.

Perhaps the only injury from the entire affair is to the bloggers and tech news junkies that aren't going to get to play out their familiar 41 minute "new Apple product" masturbation routine...

Agreed. Apple products are cool and all but there really is much cooler stuff going on out there than a marginally upgraded iPhone.

Not to mention that Apple's efforts to keep their stuff secret means they know that people will try to find out. Surely Apple expects at least some secrets to get out--there's no way a single leak upends their entire business model. Better this secret (new iPhone with slightly different design) than something much bigger (e.g. Intel machines, the original iPhone, iPad, etc.).

Actually, you've brought up a good point. Now that we've seen the device, with all the corroborating information to prove its legitimacy, I'm now unlikely to read any more stories speculating about the new iPhones, since the veil has already been lifted. Gawker has lost all the traffic to the countless iPhone rumor stories they were going to post from now until June, in exchange for the burst of traffic now. I wonder if it was ultimately worth it for them. iPhone rumors are a serious media industry.

Arguing that the media shouldn't publish factual information because it impacts a company's bottom line is a dangerous argument, even (especially) if the company affected is one that you like.

It's a load of shit is what it is.

Very true. I agree that plastering the Apple employee's info all over the place was tacky, but I see nothing wrong with publishing their story. People love it when wikileaks breaks huge stories involving governments, armies, and corporations, but they get upset when a (lackluster and predictable) Apple secret gets leaked by a tech/gadget journalism website. I personally enjoy both.

Agreed. Publishing the story about the device, fine. But it takes a real d-bag to leak the name of the engineer who lost it.

Well I'll agree with you there, but arguing that the media shouldn't publish factual information gleaned from a prototype that they bought knowing it was stolen while flaunting their disregard for the law just to rub Apple's nose in it is something I can get behind.

I'll admit that I haven't been following this story very closely, but I was under the impression that an employee at Apple accidentally left the phone at a bar, someone found the phone, tried to return it to Apple, but kept getting the run-around while on the phone with them, so eventually he gave up on trying to return it and he ended up selling it to gizmodo instead.

I could be completely mistaken on that though.

Well, that's certainly the story as Gizmodo reports it. Unfortunately it comes from a source with plenty of reason to lie about the details, and can't be verified as nobody outside of Gizmodo knows who that source is.

It also leaves open the question of how someone can be clever enough to realize the importance of what he'd found and clever enough to know who to sell it to and how much to sell it for, but not clever enough to figure out how to contact the guy who lost it even though he knew the location where it was lost, knew the guy's name and had visited the guy's Facebook page.

Dangerous in what sense? He's making an ethical argument, not a legal or economic argument, as you're implying. It's all gossip, unlike (say) wikileaks.

A certain political blogger, in another context (http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/04/the-fifte...), remarked:

[T]here are really two ways to break news. A Type 1 scoop is a story that if you don’t break, just won’t be broken. A Type 2 scoop is a pure race for priority... [such scoops] are structurally similar to “breaking news” but they don’t have any real value.

Revealing what’s in the next iPhone is a Type 2 scoop: everyone was going to find out this information as soon as the product was actually released, so Gizmodo didn’t provide much of a public service by publishing it ahead of schedule.

If journalists didn’t get so much attention paid to their Type 2 scoops then maybe they’d devote more resources to breaking Type 1 scoops.

(Disclaimer of interest: My startup was recently bought by Nokia, which, duh, competes with Apple in the smartphone market.)

The article fails to make a convincing case on exactly what Gizmodo damaged by releasing information about the phone.

Leak or no, this phone is most likely going to sell like hotcakes, and the builders at Apple should do just fine. It's not like the product launch is ruined in any way... Steve Jobs will be A-OK on stage presenting it.

Virtually any tech publication would report on an iPhone prototype, and it is not their moral duty not to.

(I don't think Gizmodo needed to name the Apple engineer who lost the phone; however, this is not a topic presented by the article.)

It's not like the product launch is ruined in any way, and Steve Jobs will be A-OK on stage presenting it.

Can't disagree more. You're saying Steve is going to go on stage and pretend like he's "unveiling" something everyone knows everyone in the room has seen? I'd expect that from any other CEO, but Steve is smart enough to not reek of bullshit in front of his most loyal customers.

Apple's not just selling a phone, it's the entire lifecycle experience: that includes the buildup, the unveiling, the opening of the presents. It's precisely like Christmas, and Steve Jobs is Santa. For those of us who buy into this ritual, what Gizmodo did is like tell us exactly what our Christmas present will be in August.

If Jobs is as big of a perfectionist as I think he is, even if they intended to, there's no way they're introducing that phone on June.

Rubbish ... this is not a revolutionary product like the original iPod or iPhone launch ... it's just an update after all.

Can't disagree more. You're saying Steve is going to go on stage and pretend like he's "unveiling" something everyone knows everyone in the room has seen?

Nope, he's going to go on stage and deliver a presentation which will whip the fanboys into a froth world-wide. And he's going to do it in front of a hall full of carefully chosen audience members. Standard Operating Procedure.

The fact that Gizmodo scooped his reveal might be a game-changer for a lesser CEO, but Jobs is the best presenter in the business.

So what? It's about time that Apple was welcomed to the real world product leaks that happen every day with companies with size of Apple. I think the key here is how Apple deals with it now that everyone is watching.

> I think the key here is how Apple deals with it now that everyone is watching.

Andrey predicts [1] that the new iPhone launch will be canceled (or delayed?), and that Gizmodo will pay dearly for the leak.

1. http://andreyf.tumblr.com/post/540380259/two-points-about-th...

Canceling the launch would be utterly insane. Steve is not going to throw away millions of dollars because somebody exposed the "secrets" of a slightly modified exterior and front-facing camera.

They don't call it the reality distortion field for nothing.

It's not up to the rest of the world to make sure your little rituals aren't disturbed. Leaks happen. If you want somebody to blame for spoiling your Christmas look to Apple. Though I suspect it won't be a problem anymore since they'll probably be sending out a Secret Service detail with these things from now on.

There’s plenty of evidence of Steve unveiling products that have leaked without problems. Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwsn27J_tlo

As he calls it, it’s just a case of ‘premature specification’.

Now that the honeymoon has ended, just buy an Android phone and move on with your life.

I like new gadgets and everything, but I don't care about the build-up. I like the HTC Evo 4G. I added my email address to the "tell me when it's ready" list. When I get the email, I will walk over to the Sprint store and pick it up. I will enjoy the phone just as much as if it was announced by some CEO in a turtleneck... and I can even plan for the purchase in advance!

There are some things in life worth thinking about. What resolution the screen of a new telephone is going to be is not one of those things.

Apple's not just selling a phone, it's the entire lifecycle experience

You know what, if this makes you want to buy Apple stuff, it's really frickin' sad ...

Are you saying that you won't buy the phone because Gizmodo told you about it before Apple? If so, how do you justify that? If not, why does any of this matter?

Last time Jobs went on stage, everybody knew about the iPad down to its exact specs and what magazines were going to be available on it.

Didn't seem to hurt the sales nor the excitement one bit.

But would any tech organization buy stolen company secrets and property?

It is highly arguable that Gizmodo came upon the iPhone prototype legally. And in the case that you can run a story on an iPhone prototype for $5000, gaining 20M+ page views without stomping all over any laws, I would say that any smart tech publication would do the same.

Smart maybe, but not ethical. They may have gotten 20M page views, but their not in my feed anymore.

You should probably frame your question this way, "Which tech organization wouldn't buy stolen company secrets and property?"

They damaged the reputation of the guy who lost it. If Apple decided the breach was serious enough to warrant termination, how does that affect the hireability of somebody whose major claim to fame is "lost secret prototype while drinking and exposed company secrets to hailstorm of press?"

Why I'm annoyed at Gizmodo is the harping they did on this guy's personal life. Shortly after releasing the iPhone story, they then ran a story on the guy who lost it, including screenshots of his Twitter page. Then, for no apparently reasonable explanation, write another post with just the Twitter screenshot showing how it was his birthday.

What the hell, Jesus Diaz (main writer of all the iPhone-related posts)? Does the phrase "full disclosure" mean you have to be a dick, too? It seems like a pretty petty way of increasing pageviews, but suppose I shouldn't expect more integrity from a Gawker Media site.

Information wants to be free. If you don't want someone to know about something, don't take it out to a bar. And especially don't leave it sitting around in the bar where anyone can take it. If you show something to a bunch of people, it's not a secret anymore.

Apple fucked this up, and they have only themselves to blame.

Gizmodo did what their readers wanted. They worked hard (to the tune of $10,000) and got an exclusive story that no other media outlet got. If nuclear launch codes were left in a bar, the media would be congratulated for breaking the story. But if it's a telephone, then everyone should be quiet and say nothing about it? Why? Why does the government deserve more scrutiny than a publicly-traded megacorp? Because Steve Jobs likes saying "one more thing"?

I'm not convinced.

(Uh oh, dowmodded because I hate Apple. What a shock.)

Modded you back up my friend. This is just about the the most laughable link I have ever seen on HN. It highlights the total and utter meaninglessness of the Apple "fanboi", writing whining blog posts about the revelation that a phone is going from smooth corners to sharper ones before the god-Jobs can present it to the salivating masses.

don't leave it sitting around in the bar where anyone can take it

Are you saying that you really believe that phone was left at the bar by Apple?

I don't care much about any loss of buzz for Apple, but the conditions in which that story was extorted are definitely not healthy and worth discussing.

"If nuclear launch codes were left in a bar, the media would be congratulated for breaking the story."

Well, not if they scanned the launch codes and posted them online for everyone to see. That's not the only fallacy either--the government losing nuclear launch codes in a bar is a story because it proves the government can't protect nuclear launch codes, Apple losing a prototype iPhone in a bar is only a story because it gives us some idea of what the next iPhone might look like.

Incidentally, paying thousands of dollars for something you damn well know isn't legally owned by the person who's selling it to you is wrong. If it's a book of nuclear launch codes and there's a legitimate story to be told it's outweighed by a greater good, but where's the greater good here?

So the media can only cover subjects that lead to a "greater good"? Why not hold Apple to the same standard -- they can only keep their phone model secret if it does so for the "greater good".

Oh wait, maybe businesses -- even the media -- are motivated by something other than the greater good.

That's not even remotely what I said. What I said is that trafficking in stolen goods is wrong unless it's justified by a greater good.

But what I think is the greater good is different to what you think it is. So what if Gizmodo thought they were doing the greater good?

Then we have two options--either someone is wrong, or we get to sit around playing moral relativist all day.

It wasn't a rhetorical question, either--what is the greater good that justifies being an accomplice to theft in this case?

I'd really like to know why I'm being repeatedly downvoted here, just so I know what to improve on in the future. Thanks!

Did they even consider the hundreds of people whose blood, sweat, and tears went into building that device?

Of course they didn't. Nor does anyone else. Apple anonymizes their engineering team for the most part. No more signatures on the inside of our Macs. The public knows Steve Jobs and Jon Ive and that's about it.

It's been clear for a long time that Apple would love to commoditize not just their internal engineering but their developer community as well. I say this impartially. It makes sense given their trajectory and control over the distribution channel.

I'm getting really angry with people about this whole thing: It's called a free press people. While they skirted the law, I doubt any DA would touch this affair (prosecuting the press when no one is physically harmed is a generally losing proposition; ditto for the sources of the press when they're not government employees).

If Apple doesn't release the phone due to the leak itself, they're silly. And you don't become one of the biggest companies in the world via silliness. I don't hate or love Apple. I'm a realist. Guess what: Apple is made up of realists too! They're going to release the phone still

Sure, some of you actually have talked yourself into liking the ultra-secret nature of Apple's product cycle. Good for you. A huge other portion of reality hates it. It makes that group of people make poor buying decisions (such as people who don't realize you never ever give Apple items for Christmas, because they're likely going to be superseded by the next thing in a release in a month).

Even if everyone DID like the secrecy and theater: Guess what, Gawker is a for-profit company, just like Apple. They do things for money, just like Apple (section 3.3.1 people? Is your memory that short?). Gizmodo was presented with a prototype. They'd be remiss to not run with it, after finding out it wasn't stolen (in the common understanding of the word, not the quibbling "but by California code 2309482 it is stolen" sort of manner). Gizmodo is a company that makes money by selling the eyeballs of people looking at interesting information. This is exactly what they SHOULD do when presented with this.

Apple took a business risk in field testing phones. Guess what, sometimes the bad thing happens. That's why they call it risk. In this case: the bad thing did happen. Honestly, the fact people were still talking about 3.3.1 even after the iAd and other 4.0 items being unveiled makes me wonder if this was an intentional leak to regain the control of the news cycle for Apple.

And as to the guy who got outed: Honestly, I think Giz was doing two legitimate things (but likely hurting a random person in the process). 1> They were establishing the authenticity of the phone. By pointing out 'hey, it is from someone at Apple' they dispelled the rumors of this being a faked up phone. 2> They were revealing how they came to get it, dissuading the police and Apple from finding out through legal discovery processes. Apple could have argued industrial espionage if more details weren't out there, but by publishing it all, Gizmodo likely pulled the legs out of any legal proceeding.

Do I think the self serving saving their own ass was a good thing? Not the nicest thing, but I think it was a realistic business decision which was good for the business, just like 3.3.1 was for Apple, and just like publishing this whole story in the first place was for Gizmodo.

This whole thing is a giant un-story. The internet drama has far outweighed it's significance. This isn't the first iPhone; it's just a prototype of an n+1 version iPhone. It's not like we didn't know Apple would come out with a newer model. I doubt halfway competent cell phone engineers would have trouble guessing what it would look like.

If this is really the case, he should be enraged at the mere existence of sites like Gizmodo and Engadget. But, clearly, he's not. For some reason Apple is held to a different standard. Are the employees of other companies not skilled enough to deserve the same protection? Are they just common labor?

This whole notion of outrage on Apple's behalf (for the moment, ignoring the poor engineer and his very public outing) mystifies me. This is the first time I've seen such a reaction by so many people feeling bad for a multi-billion dollar corporation.

Just because Apple's policy is secrecy doesn't mean we have to cover our ears and close our eyes when they let something slip. Sure, Gizmodo's handling of the whole situation was dubious, but in the long run, I can't see any way that this actually hurt Apple.

Lots of people seem to be trying to live Steve Jobs' life vicariously.

"They posted a video on YouTube with a smug smile on their face as they unveiled the iPhone a couple of months before Steve Jobs could. They stole his thunder. They rained on his parade. They spoiled his secret."

The poor man... I mean, it's not like he'll ever be able to a product reveal again, is it? </sarcasm>

Serious, I'm not going to argue that Gizmodo should have done what they did, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for Steve Jobs missing out on the opportunity to present yet another product to world in a massively self-glorifying fashion, with thousands of fans singing his praises. He does it every few years; he can miss one.

Gizmodo's behavior may have been reprehensible, but I have a VERY difficult time shedding tears over the so called 'damage' this does to the Apple employees that worked on/are working on the device. Boo frickin' hoo. The phone isn't going to sell a single unit less because of this. Nor will the people who worked on it have any reason to feel any less pride in their work. I'm sure the thing is going to rock. sigh

Except of course the engineer that Gizmodo publicly humiliated, of course.

Yeah, that part was completely unnecessary and unfortunate.

Come on, it's a hardware update on a phone that changes the shape a little. Yes you can say you don't agree with Gizmodo and think it reflects badly on them. But that's only worth a passing comment in a pub with friends or a comment here on HN in what should have been the one and only thread about it. But instead we get a deluge of threads about it and people writing "why I'm angry" blog posts. This kind of stuff isn't really different to celebrity news and doesn't belong on HN at all.

If Apple's strategy for building things requires strict secrecy, they must be prepared for occasional failures in that secrecy. This was simply an accident, bound to happen eventually. Apple can cope with it; otherwise, they wouldn't be using this strategy.

I find it amusing that Gizmodo is portrayed as the destroyer, here. They are creating value in their own way; it's a little ironic that the blogger bemoans the lack of builders after writing an entire article tearing down Gizmodo's work.

If Apple fans really wanted to be surprised when the new iPhone was unveiled, why did they read the Gizmodo article? Surely the readers are just as much to blame for the "destruction" of value as Gizmodo and Apple.

This line resumes everything:

"They posted a video on YouTube with a smug smile on their face as they unveiled the iPhone a couple of months before Steve Jobs could."

I do not think he is angry because of Gizmondo (low) standards of decency, because they apparently released an entire report about the guy (I just do not read Gizmondo, so I did not read the post), he's just mad because Jobs will not present an orgasmic keynote for Apple fans.

Which silly because this phone isn't news. Steve might pimp it during a keynote but it would be a lame center piece.

Getting angry that a company is going to have a little less marketing buzz at launch seems a like a bit of an overreaction.

Apple make some awesome phones. This one will do just fine on its merits.

Is Steve the only person in his life who truly understands him, the only one who can surprise him with a wonderful present he's sure to like?

All the shiny toys in Cupertino won't help you, Mr. Blogger. You need a girlfriend.

This analogy would work better if Gizmodo destroyed the prototype, all of its blueprints, and murdered the engineers behind the project.

Or, for that matter, did anything but hold a pin to an over-inflated hot air balloon.

What about the possibility that this was done intentionally by Apple? They're famous for these kinds of intentional leaks.

I don't know anything more than anyone else here I'm just speculating.

Who downmodded smutticus here? That's just ridiculous. Modded back up.

I enjoy a good spy photo of a mysterious new product. It doesn't ruin the surprise for me; it enhances it by keeping me guessing.

Gizmodo ruined both for me this week. It just felt unfair, even predatory—acquiring the device itself through shady means, photographing it up and down in high resolution, dissecting it and macroing each component; it turned what was a game into something unnecessarily serious. It turned a coy tease into pornography.

I had to imagine the Apple designers and engineers who had made this thing their focus for the better part of a year, cringing as their unfinished work went through the wringer of Gizmodo's pageview circus.

Gizmodo ruined both for me this week.

If the launch of a new consumer electronics product is something that can be "ruined" for you then I would suggest, sans malice, that you perhaps need more stuff going on in your life.

Do you play games? I do. Consumer electronics unveilings were one that I enjoyed until a blog decided to stop playing for fun.

I am not at all angry about the iPhone leak. I could not care less.

Am I the only one that suspects this leak to be just a PR stunt?

This has certainly gotten more attention and buzz than the real launch of the 3GS, and it seems like the phones have less of a difference. Who's the victim?

Anybody else consider maybe Apple allowed this whole fiasco intentionally (viral marketing style) to take press away from the TOS change that the blogosphere has been frothing about for the last few weeks?

Marketing is necessary to a degree, and insofar as marketing gets potential consumers knowledge of devices they may want, it's important that marketing happen.

But what this blog is essentially saying is that Gizmodo ruined Apple's hard work of marketing the phone by publishing pictures of the phone. That's absurd. If publishing pictures of a device in a neutral manner depresses a device's reputation, that device is not as reputable as its marketers would have you believe, and their work should be torn down.

I worry for the fan-boys. I really do.

This iPhone incident has been a low point for Apple blogging. I think that when an Apple blog is teaching us why stealing is wrong, or publishing California laws, then I think that Apple blog is doing something other than Apple blogging.

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