• Another iPhone Prototype Lost In A Bar


    As reported  by CNET, it appears Apple may have lost another unreleased iPhone model in a bar, this time at the Cava22 in San Francisco. The errant iPhone, which went missing in San Francisco’s Mission district in late July, sparked a scramble by Apple security to recover the device over the next few days, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

    You may recall last year’s loss of an iPhone 4 prototype, which was lost by an Apple employee and sold to Gizmodo. This year’s lost phone seems to have taken a more mundane path: it was taken from a Mexican restaurant and bar and may have been sold on Craigslist for $200. Still unclear are details about the device, what version of the iOS operating system it was running, and what it looks like.

    Apple electronically traced the phone to a two-floor, single-family home in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood, according to the source.

    When San Francisco police and Apple’s investigators visited the house, they spoke with a man in his twenties who acknowledged being at Cava 22 on the night the device went missing. But he denied knowing anything about the phone. The man gave police permission to search the house, and they found nothing, the source said.

    iPhone 5 is expected to launch this September / early October.

  • Samsung Demands Apple To Get Access to iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and iPad 3 Devices


    As part of the ongoing lawsuits between Apple and Samsung, started back in April when Apple sued Samsung over the “look and feel” of the Galaxy phones and tablets. This Is My Next points to an interesting piece of information as now Samsung is requesting to see some of Apple’s unreleased final and commercial versions of products . Namely the iPad 3 and the next iPhone, be it iPhone  4S or iPhone 5. This is to ensure and  evaluate if their future products, like the Droid Charge and the Galaxy Tab 10.1, could share similar features with them.

    This move comes after Apple requested to see some of Samsung’s unreleased products, which most of which were publicly released before, Droid Charge, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Infuse 4G and Galaxy S 2. Providing that only Apple legal team will get access to the devices. Similarly now Samsung says only the company’s lawyers would be able to see the iPhone 5 and iPad 3, with no one else inside the company getting access to the units.

    Samsung’s asking for a court order requiring Apple to produce “the final, commercial versions” of the next-generation iPhone and iPad and their respective packaging by June 13, 2011, so it can evaluate whether there’ll be confusion between Samsung and Apple’s future products. If the final versions aren’t available, Samsung wants “the most current version of each to be produced instead.

    Samsung says “fundamental fairness” requires Apple to give up its future products, since Samsung had to do the same. Tellingly, Samsung doesn’t reference any precedent or law to bolster this line of argument — it’s basically just asking the court to be nice.

    The full breakdown of Samsung’s latest request can be read over This Is My Next

  • Apple Gets Early Access to Unreleased Samsung Prototypes Over Copy Infringement


    The legal battle between Apple and Samsung has taken a new ride. Apple is suing the Korean corporation over alleged copying the “look and feel” of the iPhone and iOS with its Galaxy range, and a federal court is forcing Samsung to hand over samples of new phones for Apple to pore over. Only Apple’s legal team for this case will see the products, so no-one from Apple or even Apple’s in-house lawyers will see the rival devices.

    Samsung Galaxy S 2 and Infuse 4G are on sale now, the other three devices Droid Charge, Galaxy Tab 8.9 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 aren’t yet on the market. As noted by Cnet UK

    Apple’s legal battle with Samsung has taken a new twist. The California outfit is suing the Korean corporation over alleged copying of Apple products in Samsung’s Android range, and a federal court is forcing Samsung to hand over samples of new phones for Apple to pore over.

    Normally, there’d be three months before Samsung had to hand over samples, but San Jose Judge Lucy Koh has decided that Samsung has already been shooting its mouth off about the unreleased phones and can’t claim they’re secret models, Courthouse News reports. Apple points out that Samsung even gave away a Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet to all 5,000 people at the recent Google I/O developer conference.

    Apple claims Samsung is causing confusion in the minds of the phone-buying public by copying the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad in the design of phones and tablets, the interface and even the packaging. Samsung even has its own version of the iPod touch, which strips out the phone functions — the Galaxy S WiFi 5.0 and Galaxy S WiFi 4.0.