Gizmodo Wrangles Admission Out Of Apple

The Great iPhone Leak Of 2010 has entered its final chapter. Late yesterday, Apple's lawyers sent Gizmodo an official letter requesting that the blog arrange the return of the iPhone to Apple. Gizmodo agreed.Gizmodo Editorial Director Brian Lam received a lot of phone calls yesterday. One of them was from Apple's legal team. During the call, Senior Vice President and General Counsel Bruce Sewell asked Gizmodo to return the lost iPhone. Gizmodo agreed, but said it would only respond to an official request.

Lam explains, "This phone was lost, and then found. But from Apple's perspective, it could have been considered stolen. I told them, all they have to do to get it back is to claim it-on record."

Apple did. It sent Gizmodo an official letter requesting that the iPhone be returned. Apple wrote, "It has come to our attention that Gizmodo is currently in possession of a device that belongs to Apple. This letter constitutes a formal request that you return the device to Apple."

As far as Gizmodo is concerned, that is a full admission that the device is legitimate and real. Lam notes, "It proves-if there was any doubt in your mind-that this thing is real. And since this was the only missing piece of the puzzle, we have now both extinguished any doubts of its origin but also, we get to give the phone back."

Apple has yet to indicate that it will pursue any legal action against Gizmodo for receiving the lost iPhone. Gizmodo admitted yesterday that it paid $5,000 to the person who found the device at a German bar in California, where an Apple employee lost it. Gizmodo believes that California law regarding lost property is on its side.

Whatever Apple decides to do, this event will go down in history as the worst Apple product screw-up of all time. My guess is the company has already made changes to its policies regarding unannounced products that are still under development.

The bigger question is, will this affect the planned launch of the next iPhone? Will Apple insist on making design changes, feature changes, will it push the launch back? Apple didn't admit how far along this particular unit was in the evolutionary path of the iPhone. Was it a near-final unit? The first design? We simply won't know until Apple gets around to announcing the thing.

Unless there's another leak.