Apple Claims Loss over iPhone Prototype Leak Is ‘Huge’

Unearthed court documents reveal that the publication of photos of an iPhone prototype was "immensely damaging" to Apple, representing a "huge" loss. Apple officials reportedly told police investigators that, "Sales of current Apple products are hurt," because of the published details about its next-generation iPhone model.

After Gawker Media-owned Gizmodo admitted to paying $5,000 for a leaked prototype iPhone, Detective Matthew Brand of the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office met with several Apple reps, including Bruce Sewell, Apple's chief counsel, Rick Orloff, the Mac maker’s director of information security, and George Riley, a lawyer from the Los Angeles law firm of O'Melveny and Myers, which represents Apple, Computerworld reports.

According to the aforementioned documents, the respective meeting saw Riley telling Brand that the premature disclosure of technical details with respect to the prototype device had been "immensely damaging" to Apple.

"By publishing details about the phone and its features, sales of current Apple products are hurt wherein people that would have otherwise purchased a currently existing Apple product would wait for the next item to be released, thereby hurting overall sales and negatively effecting [sic] Apple's earnings," Riley said, according to Brand’s affidavit. When asked to quantify the loss, Riley said he could not estimate it in dollars, but that he believed the damage was "huge."

In the meanwhile, Apple has lost yet another prototype iPhone 4G in Vietnam, with a forum posting images and a video of the device in action, for the entire world to see. Adding insult to injury, the same forum also hosts pictures and a video of an upcoming MacBook. While not an entirely new model, the system features updated specs, including a higher clocked CPU, a better display, enhanced graphics, and a new AC adapter. While Apple’s new iPhone is not due out until later this summer, the updated laptop computer is expected to launch as early as this week.