The already odd story based around a missing iPhone prototype just got odder. Earlier this week, news reports hit the Internet, based on unnamed sources, that an Apple employee lost a prototype of the company's upcoming iPhone 5 in a San Francisco bar in late July. The story was a near perfect repeat of what happened in March 2010 when another Apple employee lost an iPhone 4 prototype in nearby Redwood City, California. That phone eventually found its way to the tech site Gizmodo who wrote an extensive article based on examining the prototype.
The initial story claimed that Apple helped local police track down the location of the lost iPhone 5 prototype to a home in the Bernal Heights neighborhood. The story added that the phone didn't turn up at that location and that the unnamed man at the home denied he knew where it was. Later in the week, SF Weekly posted a story that cast some doubts on that story, reporting that representatives from the SFPD said that it had not received any reports of a missing iPhone prototype, nor did the SFPD help to search for the same phone. However, today SF Weekly posted up a follow up story, saying that the SFPD had reversed their stance. The organization now admits that "three or four" officers, along with two Apple security representatives, were indeed involved in the search of a Bernal Heights home for the iPhone 5 prototype. The officers actually stayed outside the home while the two Apple security personnel searched the residence.
Sergio Calderón, the now identified owner of that Bernal Heights home, says six people showed up at his door a few weeks ago claiming to be police officers. But only two of them actually searched his home, according to Calderón, and looked for the lost iPhone prototype. Calderón said neither of the two men who came inside his home gave any indication that they were Apple representatives and not police officers. One of them did give Calderón a card with his phone number. When SF Weekly called that number the person who answered said he was an Apple employee but would not comment further. Apple has still not commented on these reports.
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