How a Drunk Engineer Lost the Next iPhone

How did Gizmodo penetrate Apple's ironclad security to get its hands on the next-generation iPhone? Thank the power of beer. Apple engineer Gray Powell, who was working on the Baseband Software that will allow the phone to actually make calls, lost the device at the beer garden not far from company headquarters, where he was celebrating his 27th birthday. He'd been testing it, disguised as a 3GS. His status update sent from the phone read, “I underestimated how good German beer is.”

He then left the device on his barstool, forgot about it, and left the bar. The stranger sitting next to him waited for him to return, but to no avail. The next morning it had been remotely bricked, but he fiddled around with it enough to open the faux-3GS outer shell and find the device within. When Apple wouldn't return his calls, he contacted Gizmodo. The tech site quickly verified the find, and eventually tracked down Powell—who has, apparently, been neither killed nor fired by Apple's secret police.
(More Gizmodo stories.)