AllThingsD » Brian Lam

The Long, Weird Cops and Robbers Tale of Gizmodo, Apple and the 4G iPhone

Peter Kafka — Fri, 14 May 2010 20:43:48 +0000

Here’s the definitive tale, so far, of iPhonegate. It comes via the search warrant affidavit filed by the San Mateo cops, who were investigating Gizmodo’s purchase of a 4G iPhone prototype as a felony.

A lot of this stuff has been out in one form or another, but the narrative is pretty fascinating. If you plow through the document embedded at the bottom of the post, bear in mind that it’s a tale told by Matthew Broad, a detective in San Mateo County Sheriff’s office. So it’s possible that other parts of the story, and/or different versions of the same story, may still end up coming to light.

Among the highlights:

Apple knew that Brian Hogan, the 21-year-old who found the iPhone, had the thing because his roommate, Katherine Martinson, called and told the company he had it. Her reasoning, according to Apple (AAPL) security chief Rick Orloff: “Suspect Hogan connected the stolen iPhone to her computer and she believed that Apple would eventually trace the iPhone back to her via IP addresses. Therefore she contacted Apple in order to absolve herself of criminal responsibility.”
Martinson told police that Hogan had offered the phone to Gizmodo, AOL’s (AOL) Engadget.com and PC World. While Gizmodo owner Gawker Media had previously said it paid $5,000 for access to the phone, the affidavit is a bit fuzzier. Martinson says Hogan told her Gizmodo offered $10,000 for the gadget and later said he’d received $5,000 from Gizmodo and a total of $8,500. But she wasn’t clear where the other $3,500 came from. “Martinson said Hogan also told her that he will receive a cash bonus from Gizmodo.com in July if and when Apple makes an official product announcement regarding the new iPhone.”
There’s a long cops-and-robbers interlude where police show up at Hogan’s house, but he takes off and is eventually tracked down at his father’s place. In the end, Hogan and Thomas Warner, another roommate, help the cops retrieve a computer, a flash drive and other equipment they’d removed from their place “in order to ‘protect’” Hogan.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs did indeed reach out to Gizmodo to ask for the phone back. Here’s editor Brian Lam’s response to Jobs, via email (click to enlarge):

And here’s the entire affidavit, which we’re able to see because a group of media companies, including CNET, Bloomberg, Wired and the Los Angeles Times, petitioned a California judge to unseal it. Gawker Media, via COO Gaby Darbyshire, declined to comment on the affidavit and its contents.

UPDATE: Here’s Gawker’s position, via an email Darbyshire sent Saturday afternoon:

First of all, the warrant and supporting affidavit do not appear to acknowledge the sanctity of the newsroom or even address the serious issues at stake.

Second, the idea that it is a felony trade secret theft to photograph an item that was admittedly left in a bar is ridiculous.

Finally, Gizmodo from the start was attempting to investigate if this item was a genuine prototype of a product belonging to Apple; we believed that confirmation of its authenticity and ownership quite reasonably needed to be made in writing – and once we obtained that, the item was returned immediately.

EFF has a detailed piece on the warrant issue here.

Gizmodo-iPhoneOrder

Scenes From the Apple iPad Day: Is It a Thneed or an iPod XL?

Kara Swisher — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:25:28 +0000

BoomTown captured some bits and pieces of tasty video as I attended the Apple rollout of its newest device, the iPad, yesterday.

There are shots of the action in San Francisco outside and inside the launch hall and demo area (with key clips of CEO Steve Jobs during the event) showing off the hardware and software.

And, in a series of interviews, I mocked New York Times (NYT) tech legend John Markoff, got mocked by Apple (AAPL) PR gurus Katie Cotton and Steve Dowling, got gallant treatment from Gizmodo’s Brian Lam, got shut down by New York Times tech dude Brad Stone and got CNBC’s Jim Goldman–whom I did not ask for a date–to call the iPad “an XL version of the iPod touch.”

Or is it a Thneed–the innovative thing that everybody needs–from Dr. Seuss’s “The Lorax”?

Time will tell, but here’s the video to enjoy, plus one of the terrific “Everybody Needs a Thneed” song:

[ See post to watch video ]

Tablet Schmablet: How About a Mud PC?

Peter Kafka — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:00:46 +0000

The Wondertablet the guys at Gizmodo showed off last night looks cool. But you can’t actually touch one right now unless you know someone very connected at Microsoft (MSFT).

You know what you can touch? Today? How about a PC you control by shoving your hands in a box full of mud?

Seriously. All you have to do is get yourself to New York’s Nolita neighborhood and drop by Gizmodo’s annual gallery show, chock full of cool, weird and often gloriously useless gadgetry.

Among other geegaws on display: An automated pancake maker, some spark-emitting and dangerous-looking Tesla coils, a “Star Trek” tricorder and a videogame that dispenses beer. And, of course, an array of Apple (AAPL) paraphernalia, including some arts-and-craftsy iPhone cases.

The free show, which runs through Sunday, is mostly a labor of love on the part of head gadgeteer Brian Lam. But I gather it’s now making some money, via sponsorships, for Gawker Media’s Nick Denton. (And if that’s the case, I hope Denton uses some of that money to make sure there’s enough power and air conditioning at next year’s gallery. Also maybe some cots for his charges.)

Lam gave me a mini-tour yesterday afternoon, which I filmed with a Flip camcorder. If want to to see for yourself (it’s much less shaky that way), drop by the gallery at 267 Elizabeth Street.

[ See post to watch video ]

Hello Kitty–A Snow Leopard Review Roundup

John Paczkowski — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:44:59 +0000

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, the latest iteration of Apple’s operating system, arrived at market today–about a month earlier than originally anticipated. And while it doesn’t really deliver the GUI enhancements we’ve come to expect from Apple (AAPL) and some incompatibilities are riling people up, Snow Leopard’s under-the-hood improvements and price point appear to have struck a chord with critics. Below, a selection of early reviews:

Overall, I believe Snow Leopard will help keep the Mac an appealing choice for computer buyers, and I can recommend it to existing Mac owners seeking more speed and disk space, or wanting to more easily use Exchange. But I don’t consider Snow Leopard a must-have upgrade for average consumers. It’s more of a nice-to-have upgrade. If you’re happy with Leopard, there’s no reason to rush out and get Snow Leopard.

– Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal

The changes here are modest, and the performance gains look promising but beyond the built in apps, just a promise. If you’re looking for more bells and whistles, you can hold off on this upgrade for at least awhile. But my thought is that Snow Leopard’s biggest feature is that it doesn’t have any new features, but that what is already there has been refined, one step closer to perfection. They just better roll out some new features next time, because the invisible refinement upgrade only works once every few decades.

– Brian Lam, Gizmodo

Here’s the thing about Snow Leopard, the single inescapable fact that hung over our heads as we ran our tests and took our screenshots and made our graphs: it’s $30. $30! If you’re a Leopard user you have virtually no reason to skip over 10.6, unless you’ve somehow built a mission-critical production workflow around an InputManager hack (in which case, well, have fun with 10.5 for the rest of your life). Sure, maybe wait a few weeks for things like Growl and MenuMeters to be updated, and if your livelihood depends on QuickTime you might want to hold off, but for everyone else the sheer amount of little tweaks and added functionality in 10.6 more than justifies skipping that last round of drinks at the bar–hell, we’re guessing Exchange support alone has made the sale for a lot of people.

– Joshua Topolsky, Engadget

Snow Leopard is Apple’s lowest-priced OS update in eight years. Granted, it’s a collection of feature tweaks and upgrades, as well as under-the-hood modifications that might not pay off for users immediately. But the price of upgrading is so low that I’ve really got to recommend it for all but the most casual, low-impact Mac users. If you’ve got a 32-bit Intel Mac (that is, one powered by a Core Solo or Core Duo processor), the benefit of this upgrade will be a little less. But for most Mac users, especially the kind of person who reads a Web site devoted to the subject, the assorted benefits of Snow Leopard outweigh the price tag. I’d pay $30 just for the improved volume ejection, the ability to create services with Automator, and the improvements to the Dock and Exposé–though I admit I’d pay slightly more to not have the misguided QuickTime Player X as a part of the package. If you’re a user who connects to an Exchange server every day, upgrading to Snow Leopard really is a no-brainer. For everyone else, maybe it’s not quite a no-brainer-but it’s awfully close. Snow Leopard is a great value, and any serious Mac user should upgrade now.

– Jason Snell, Macworld

Impressive and important, it’s an update that will revitalize your existing Mac even though you’ll be stumped for a quick five-minute demo that convinces the people around you that much of anything has changed at all.

– Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun Times

In my experience, Mac OS X was already a superior operating system to Windows. With Exchange and other technologies, Snow Leopard adds bite, especially for business. But as upgrades go, this one is relatively tame.

– Ed Baig, USA Today

If you’re already running Leopard, paying the $30 for Snow Leopard is a no-brainer. You’ll feel the leap forward in speed polish, and you’ll keep experiencing those ‘oh, that’s nice’ moments for weeks to come. If you’re running something earlier, the decision isn’t as clear cut; you’ll have to pay $170 and get Snow Leopard with Apple’s creative-software suites–whether you want them or not. Either way, the big story here isn’t really Snow Leopard. It’s the radical concept of a software update that’s smaller, faster and better–instead of bigger, slower and more bloated. May the rest of the industry take the hint.

– David Pogue, New York Times

Stock ManAAPLation? [Updated]

John Paczkowski — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:38:22 +0000

On Dec. 30, with just a couple of hours left in the penultimate trading session of the year, Apple’s (AAPL) shares hit $87.99 and seemed to be well on their way back to $90. But before they could break $88, claims that Steve Jobs’s declining health is the real reason the Apple CEO won’t deliver the keynote at Macworld 2009 cut the legs out from under them. The rumor was quickly dismissed, but not before AAPL plunged to $85.04.

As I noted that day, the timing of the rumor seemed a bit suspicious. With little in the way of news during the holiday week, Jobs’s decision to bail on the Macworld keynote issue still fresh in our minds and his health an obvious shareholder concern, it seemed a bit like an AAPL manipulator’s perfect storm.

Apparently, there may be a bit more to that armchair theory than I thought. Over at Traderhood, writers with far more stock analysis acumen than I, suggest that Apple shares were poised for a huge breakout in price the afternoon of Dec. 30, bolstered by a general upward trend in the market and their own ascending triangle (click on chart below) when they very suspiciously had the wind knocked out of them. “Amazingly at the very point where AAPL’s spike at the tip of the ascending triangle should happen, rumor was introduced and killed the setup completely,” Traderhood blogger Conschmillo explains. “I mean you can have things to happen unexpectedly. It happens all the time, it is a stock market, but to have them placed this [precisely] when everything else is taking off, AAPL included, makes me believe, there is more than meets the eye to why AAPL price is down. If this rumor was not introduced, AAPL would be somewhere around $93.”

So, a favorable technical set-up was thwarted at the moment the odds favored the opposite happening. Coincidence?

UPDATE: Apparently, it was a coincidence. Brian Lam, Editorial Director of Gizmodo, which published the rumor, tells me the site was tipped off well before Dec. 30.

[Image credit: Tin foil hat courtesy Patrick Daley]

(Thanks Barry )

The iPhone From 1983, a Nintendo Bong and a Really Big TV

Peter Kafka — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:20:31 +0000

What if Apple had made the first iPhone in 1983? What if you could turn a Nintendo controller into a bong? What would a 103-inch TV look like?

Theoretical questions no longer. At least for people who visit New York’s Lower East Side for the next few days.

That’s where Gizmodo, Gawker Media’s crazily successful gadget blog, has set up a gallery of odd, cool and awesome stuff. For a very limited time–it opened on Thursday and it runs through this Sunday.

Head Gizmodo geek Brian Lam gave me a tour of the gallery yesterday, and it’s great fun: In addition to the iPhone prototype, there’s a handful of other cool things from Apple (AAPL), including a 20th anniversary edition Mac and a prototype of an Apple Tablet machine that never saw the light of day.

So if you’re at all interested in gadgets, or the people who are, drop on by 151 Orchard Street. It’s free, but they’re happy to accept Toys For Tots donations (which also qualifies you for some cool giveaways).

If you can’t make it, you can see still images on Brian’s site, or you can check out my first attempt at Web video-making with the mandatory All Things Digital Flip camera. I’ve added a few subtitles to compensate for the fact that Brian is soft-spoken and the dudes playing “Call of Duty” in the gallery were loud. The fact that the camera is shaky and that the camera-holder says “awesome” a lot is entirely my fault.

[Image Credit: Gizmodo]

[ See post to watch video ]