Apple lost another prototype iPhone in local bar

By Mike Dunn August 31, 2011

It looks like Apple employees haven’t learned anything from last year’s lost iPhone scandal. Cnet is reporting that an Apple employee lost a prototype iPhone at a San Francisco bar in late July. The phone was lost at the bar Cava 22, which is a tequila bar in the mission district. The situation sounds like a complete re-hash of what happened last year when a prototype iPhone 4 was lost in a Redwood City bar.

A couple of days after the phone was lost San Francisco police and Apple investigators used the phone’s built in GPS to attempt to pinpoint where the phone was located. The search ended at a house in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights district, where the 22 year old resident denied any knowledge of the phone. The man did confirm that he was at Cava 22 the night the phone was lost but insisted that he did not have the phone. He then let the police search his house, but the phone was not found. Before leaving the house an Apple employee offered the man a cash reward for the phone, no questions asked.

The story continues. It is reported that the prototype phone was then sold on Craigslist to an unknown buyer. The phone sold for only $200, which is quite a bit less than the $5000 paid last year by a tech blog.

Apple has denied any knowledge of the incident, and San Francisco police stated that Apple did not file a police report for the lost merchandise. If this story is true it would be a big blow to Apple’s ego since the company takes pride in its secretive nature. With the number of rumors are flying around about the next iPhone it’s amazing that images of the device haven’t surfaced yet.

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