Apple iPhone HD: How it Leaked to the World

There's no room for errors when you're working for a company — a giant, like Apple. We all understand that. It's been known for many years, and it's only grown in intensity since the launch of the iPhone in 2007. Apple keeps their secrets, their everything close to the vest, and they've got the protocols to make sure that what they're working on stays under lock and chain until they're ready to announce it to the world. But, leaks happen. Unfortunately, for one individual, they just so happen to be the source of the biggest leak in recent memory.

It happened one month ago. March 18th, to be exact. One Apple employee was sitting in a bar called Gourmet Haus Staudt, which is located in Redwood City, California, enjoying his night out. Little to everyone in the bar's knowledge, this individual was actually giving a certain product real world testing. That particular device happened to be the iPhone HD, which made huge waves over this last weekend. Unfortunately for this Apple employee, who happens to be an Apple Software Engineer working on the iPhone's baseband software, it's too late to come back.

Sure enough, as we reported earlier this morning, Gizmodo managed to get their hands on this brand new, never before seen next-generation iPhone. They subsequently played with it, and then ultimately disassembled it, before they finally came to the ultimate conclusion that the object they had was, indeed, the next iPhone. And now, the individual is one of the most widely spread names on the Internet, and there's plenty of speculation about what's going to happen to their career, in light of this little mishap. (And by little, we recognize that this is a huge ordeal for the Cupertino-based company.)

There's still a few questions that need to be answered, and we're simply waiting for those to be addressed. As it stands right now, it seems that those at Gizmodo are working on returning the prototype they've come to attain to the "rightful owner," so we'll see what happens. Of course, there's only one "rightful owner," and we all know who that is. In the end, there's just one simple truth: mistakes happen. But, when it involves a major company like Apple, the ramifications are severe for not only those responsible, but for the company that has to deal with what comes next.

[via Gizmodo]