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Comment by zach | Hacker News Reader

Any night that ends with losing a confidential Apple prototype device was probably a heck of a night.

Apple needs some kind of proximity sensor linked to these field testers' keychain or something. Maybe they just need to upgrade Find My iPhone to include a self-destruct feature.

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Or they need a new marketing ploy.

P.S. Why are all the comments suggesting that this is not an accidental loss down-voted?

Because honestly, any company with a warchest like Apple's can afford real marketing. Who is this supposed to be targeted at anyway? The readers of Gizmodo and pcmag? Last time I checked, those arent even close to Apple's core market.

I agree with the sentiment that Apple probably wouldn't do this on purpose, but the last lost prototype made it on to the cover of just about every commuter rag in the world... That's a lot of free eyeballs.

These "accidental" losses do not go unnoticed. Every online community, every tech blog, every kid and his dog is talking about the new iPhone. Why spend money when you can do it for free?

I dunno about you, but the last time this happened the only people that were talking about were gadget geeks like us.

The general population just kept living their lives. What got people actually talking was the actual launch and the TV spots.

Now why would you let the cat out of the bag early just to whet the appetite of a small group of hardcore geeks?

>Now why would you let the cat out of the bag early just to whet the appetite of a small group of hardcore geeks?

Because you have everything to gain and nothing to lose?

I think you underestimate the noise geeks make. I'm sure it will be reported by mainstream media. A fitting headline would be:

New iPhone scheduled to be released in October lost at a local restaurant!

How is this not "real marketing"? It's on the front page of many websites. I don't see what "real" expensive marketing would do better.

How do we even know this story is true? There's been no actual leak yet.

Faux Apple mocks and speculation about the new iPhone are on the front of most gadget websites anyway, so I fail to see how they'd gain anything extra from this.

Because in the previous incident they went after gizmodo using lawyers with their claws out, you don't do that if your intention is to gain publicity with a faux-leak. It also is completely out of Apple's character to advertise in such a way. The kicker though is that Apple has absolutely zero motive to do such a thing, they get plenty of hype from their own official announcements. Hell, if Apple announced that the next iPhone was 3G only, had only a single core cpu, and a monochrome screen with 240x180 resolution it would be heralded as a bold new direction in smart phones.

>P.S. Why are all the comments suggesting that this is not an accidental loss down-voted?

Probably because it's easier to press a button than to write a convincing counter-argument.

I've wanted something like this for years. I lose stuff all the time. I seriously think that if anyone made this, and also made it small, convenient, and easy to use, it'd be a goldmine. Of course, kind of self-defeating if you end up losing the keychain or whatever. But still, I'd probably still buy and use it.

http://www.phonehalo.com/products-2/

Awesome, but doesn't work with lost iPhone prototypes.

Not that I actually believe that PakG1's interest in this technology seriously involved an iPhone prototype, but I actually have a test unit of this product clipped to my bag, paired to my iPhone (and not because I sprinkled it with my magic Cydia pixie dust either ;P).

This is PERFECT. Does the test unit work well? I am seriously interested in this product.

To be honest, it required iOS 4.3, so I didn't install it on my main phone (which is still on 4.0 for various reasons); the end result being that I am not really stressing the thing out trying to determine how well it works (and thereby don't have that much to say). :(

Wow, awesome. Just what I was hoping for and impressive, thanks for sharing the link.

You can remote wipe with Find My iPhone, but you were probably thinking of something much more spectacular.

Safety/legal questions aside, do any hardware people know if the battery could be rigged to 'explode'?

My guess would be that rigging it to explode would be illegal (and very hazardous).

> Safety/legal questions aside

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