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Comment by Lazlo_Nibble | Hacker News Reader

Again, the only source of the "left in a bar" story is Gizmodo. That may be the story the seller told them, but it hasn't been confirmed by anyone else.

If the seller "acquired" it by more overt means, they have plenty of reason to lie about it. Particularly if they "acquired" it after noticing it wasn't an ordinary iPhone, at which point things really do start to drift into trade-secret territory.

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Two facts corroborate Gizmodo's story. One is that the iPhone was disguised to be an older model. If it were just a model designed to sit on a test bench, I doubt it would be camouflaged. If it were intended to be tested in bars, however, then that makes sense.

Secondly, the identity of the Apple employee was released. He has a great incentive to say, "someone came into my lab and threatened to stab me if I didn't hand over the prototype". But, he has not denied the lost-in-a-bar story, even though he has an incentive to do so.

So I think the "story" is probably right.

I don't think Powell's public silence to date indicates anything other than the fact that Apple hasn't authorized him to discuss it in public. (Most large companies wouldn't under the circumstances, it's not an Apple thing.)

If the phone was in fact stolen from him, he has no reason to comment in public right now--his job is safe and his name'll be cleared by the investigation.

IIRC it was confirmed that the engineer was at a bar because he had updated Facebook (via the phone) mentioning the delicious German beer he was drinking (hence the German airline offering him tickets to Germany).

...because once you're at a bar, it's only possible to loose things, not to have them stolen?

Hmm, I may have replied to the wrong comment, or misread it. I only meant to say that the device wasn't stolen from Apple campus, not that it couldn't have been stolen at the bar.

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