You’ve probably heard by now that my favorite tech site Gizmodo got their hands on the next generation iPhone months before it was to be announced. Much hullabaloo on their methods of acquiring the device, much hallyballoo over giving it back. It’s returned without comment (in a bag). Love them or hate them, Gizmodo’s mandate is to report (albeit in a goofy, juvenile way) upcoming new gadgets and the next big thing and that’s exactly what they did, so I can stretch my moral tidiness over how the phone got into Giz’s hands. The “fact” that the phone was acquired legitimately through someone who “found” it doesn’t bother me because I don’t know the whole facts, only Giz’s side of the story – and Apple ain’t talking. Even when they posted the name of the engineer who lost the phone (if that fact is true) for all to see I didn’t think that amoral – that was an inevitability, someone else would have found out and would have broadcasted it. No, Giz lost me when they dissected the phone and posted pictures of it to the web. That smacks of corporate espionage and was utterly unnecessary. To do it to a prototype is just tossing sand in Apple’s eyes. Then for a week they wrote article after article justifying their actions.

Not cool.

Apple is now firing shots across the bow of Gizmodo in the form of police action (they’ve called in a brand of cops called REACT that deal specifically with computer crimes), which involves kicking in doors of journalists (albeit goofy, juvenile journalists) and possibly illegally confiscating their computers.

Not cool. This whole thing is becoming a quagmire. And not in a giggity way.

Once again, Jon Stewart wades into the whole mess and sums up my feelings so succinctly I want to follow him around so I can be his human footstool. Video here not surprisingly on GawkerTV (Giz’s parent company). As usual Jon holds up a mirror to Apple and reveals its sometimes super ugly craggily face.

PS: I love the “hand crystal” reference to the Apple Store. Exactly how I felt during my last interview (which by the way, probably won’t go anywhere since, after stating in my online form application, 2 written applications and verbally to the People Person that I can’t get time off from my current job to accommodate them, they still managed to called me in for an interview in the morning, which I declined, which I was told 48 hours ago that they’d call me in 24 hours to reschedule).

Anyway.