If I Lived in California...

April 27, 2010 13:46:25.000

Is it just me, or does it appear that California law enforcement has hopped all over the Gizmodo/iPhone thing in a way that the average homeowner who spots his stolen stuff at a flea market can only dream about?

Technorati Tags: apple, theft

posted by James Robertson

Comments

Re: If I Lived in California...

[Rob Fahrni] April 27, 2010 14:41:17.680

Yes and No.

The fact that it was held for a week, dissected, and written about gives the police a cookie-crumb trail that leads right back to Gizmodo's front door. Engadget also wrote about it, but didn't keep the device, or purchase it.

Gizmodo was just dumb all the way around. They could've taken pictures, written their review and been done with it. Instead they drop cash on it and keep it until Apple asks for their stolen device back.

I'd like to believe if police in my town had such a great trail of evidence pointing back to the criminal they'd go have a nice long talk with him.

Re: If I Lived in California...

[W^L+] April 27, 2010 15:18:49.953

This _is_ extraordinary. I'm certain the value of that phone is below the amount they'd normally do anything more than write a ticket for.

Of course, this is happening in Silly Valley, not Southern or Central California. Even Apple would find it hard to get that kind of response in the southern half of the state.

Re: If I Lived in California...

[anonymous] April 27, 2010 15:53:33.502

Well if you were to ask about the value of the phone you might get shocked at how much it costs to hand build a couple of dozen prototypes. I'm sure you could justify sticking in the engineering & setup costs etc. Price could be > 100K! Obviously if you buy 50,000,000 of them you'll get a discount, so truthfully the actual price for that "beta" isn't what you would see at AT&T.