A Lost iPhone Shows Apple’s Churlish Side

A Lost iPhone Shows Apple’s Churlish SideJournalists are already getting warmed upDVD Ripperfor the next big Apple event, the Worldwide Developers Conferencewicker basket Chinain June, where they will most likely get a look at the next generation of the iPhone.

But there might be fewer people lined up, and not just because we got a peek inside the new model when photos of a prototype were leaked on a blog two weeks ago. We also got an unflattering peek inside the company itself.

After Gizmodo, a gadget blog owned by Gawker Media, paid $5,000 to obtain a next-generation iPhone that an unfortunate Apple engineer left sitting in a Silicon Valley bar, things started to get ugly out there in gadget land.

Officers from the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office kicked in a journalist’s doors and confiscated computers. Apple didn’t do the kicking, but it apparently filed a complaint — not seeking the return of theirwicker basket Chinaphone, which they had already retrieved, but information.

According to a report from Wired, at some point people identifying themselves as representatives of Apple visited the home of the man apparently trying to peddle the phone, asking to search the premises. Home visits seem a little more up the alley of the Church of Scientology, another nongovernmental organization preoccupied by secrecy.

Perhaps the law is on the side of Apple and that of the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, California’s high-tech crimes task force, which served the search warrant (Apple is represented on the public agency’s board).

Perhaps Gizmodo was involved in the felony theft of property when it paid $5,000 and published photos and videos of the device.

Perhaps Jason Chen, the Gizmodo blogger who lost four computers and two servers to the police last week, is not protected by the California shield law intended to prevent the authorities from seizing journalists’ reporting materials without a subpoena (that matter is currently under considerationDVD Ripperso the police andwicker basket Chinacounty attorneys have held off combing through the computers).