More on Apple’s Leaked iPhone 4G

On Monday, we linked to an overview look of the upcoming iPhone (4G) produced by Gizmodo, and since then, that site’s story has blown up all over the Web and television. In a little over a day-and-a-half, the site’s original article garnered near 6.5 million views, which is not only amazing, but it highlights the insane amount of interest in Apple’s upcoming gadget.

The site, understandably so, has been milking the iPhone 4G fever as much as possible, and has followed-up with multiple add-on stories to cover every possible angle. Late Monday night, the site exposed the fella who lost the phone, Apple developer Gray Powell. Despite the doubt, the “lost in a bar” story was actually true. We can only hope the Apple won’t take a major bite out of Powell’s career.

To further the authenticity of the prototype, Apple’s own Senior VP and General Counsel, Bruce Sewell, sent Gizmodo’s Editorial Director, Brian Lam, a request for the phone back. Brian did send the phone back, but not before someone at the site tore it apart to the best of their ability. Unfortunately, thanks to some clever safeguards Apple has on the internals, not even the CPU could be revealed.

To round out the site’s coverage, Gizmodo also posted an article that discusses reasons why Apple couldn’t get the lost iPhone back. That’s the interesting thing about this entire story… the iPhone simply wasn’t lost for an entire week, but almost an entire month. Apple for various reasons couldn’t get its hands back on the device, and it ended up being sold to Gizmodo for a cool $5,000.

I find two very ironic sides to this entire story. The first is the fact that Apple apparently hasn’t even sent out a Cease & Desist request yet, and the second is the fact that even though Apple’s undoubtedly peturbed at this entire situation, there’s little doubt that thanks to it, the iPhone 4G hype has increased to major levels. It seems like we’re now able to gear up and see some impressive sales numbers when the phone hits the market this summer.

It’s easy to piece together how this whole fiasco played out after the phone was lost, but the biggest mystery is why this phone left the Cupertino campus in the first place. The rest of the story fits with Apple’s identity: regular employees weren’t privy to Apple’s secret products, so they dismissed them as a hoax; Apple’s beta software doesn’t support one of Apple’s services, so they couldn’t use the one feature that could have saved their asses.