Why the story of Gray Powell losing the iPhone 4G prototype seems fabricated

Now that the dust has mostly settled ( not sure for poor Gary Powell, maybe he had one beer too many ), it’s time we take a look from another perspective at the whole ‘How Gray Powell lost an iPhone 4G Prototype while being drunk in bar’ saga. There are some things I find annoying about the whole story. Here they are:

1. How idiot does a person have to be to not know how an iPhone 3GS looks like if he’s smart enough to open up its guts? I’m talking about the guy that sold a lost device to Gizmodo. Even the other guy in the bar who first picked up the iPhone 4G didn’t recognize that it’s not an iPhone 3GS. Was everybody so clueless in that bar to now know what an iPhone 3GS doesn’t look like? Granted it was in a case, but we’ve seen a lot of pictures of it without the case.
2. That guy had read Gray Powell’s name in the Facebook app while the prototype was working. Why the hell didn’t he try to contact him? Apple didn’t take him seriously, but what about Gray? He was the one who had lost it in the first place. Logically, you contact the guy who lost something, if you have his contact information. And Gray’s name should have been enough to find him on Facebook if he was on Facebook as per the story.
3. Since the guy was smart/geeky enough to open up an iPhone, he must have known that Steve Jobs has been replying to emails a lot recently. Why didn’t he try that?
4. Gizmodo says that the guy didn’t want the prototype to end up on eBay and be sold to someone. Isn’t that what the guy did himself? Sold somebody else’s property to Gizmodo?
5. An iPhone was found on the floor of a San Jose bar according to Engadget. Gray Powell lost it at Gourmet Haus Staudt according to Gizmodo. Were there 2 iPhones prototypes? 2 guys had found them? I’m not clear on this, would love some explanation.
6. Why wouldn’t Apple take a stolen/lost property seriously? They are the company that set the standards in product secrecy before launch. This is very difficult to believe that Apple wouldn’t return calls for such an issue. It might seem small, but it’s a huge deal for the next-gen iPhone to be out there in the hands of ordinary people.
7. Gizmodo managed to contact Gray Powell, on the phone. I don’t know how they managed that, but why couldn’t that guy who sold the iPhone 4G prototype do that same. Again, Facebook or a phone call, either of them could have been helpful in returning the device.

These are just some of the things I find ridiculous in the story of the lost iPhone 4G prototype so far. It’s just another look at the story that brought Gizmodo 20 million pageviews in a day, just to make things more interesting.