In a bizarre repeat of a high-profile incident last year, an Apple employee once again appears to have lost an unreleased
iPhone in a bar.
The errant iPhone, which went missing in San Francisco's Mission
district in late July, sparked a scramble by Apple security to recover
the device over the next few days, according to a source familiar with
the investigation.
Last year, an
iPhone 4 prototype was bought by a gadget blog that paid $5,000
in cash. This year's lost phone seems to have taken a more mundane
path: it was taken from a Mexican restaurant and bar and may have been
sold on Craigslist for $200. Still unclear are details about the device,
what version of the iOS operating system it was running, and what it
looks like.
While Apple has not publicly announced any plans for future phones, unconfirmed reports in the last few weeks suggest the launch date for the
iPhone 5 is likely to be in early October. Other reports from Taiwan have set the date at September or October.
A day or two after the phone was lost at San Francisco's Cava 22,
which describes itself as a "tequila lounge" that also serves
lime-marinated shrimp ceviche, Apple representatives contacted San
Francisco police, saying the device was priceless and the company was
desperate to secure its safe return, the source said.
Apple electronically traced the phone to a two-floor, single-family home
in San Francisco's Bernal Heights neighborhood, according to the
source.
When San Francisco police and Apple's investigators visited the house,
they spoke with a man in his twenties who acknowledged being at Cava 22
on the night the device went missing. But he denied knowing anything
about the phone. The man gave police permission to search the house, and
they found nothing, the source said. Before leaving the house, the
Apple employees offered the man money for the phone no questions asked,
the source said, adding that the man continued to deny he had knowledge
of the phone.
