When a prototype iPhone 4G was found on the floor of a bar in California, everyone thought the same thing, "Someone's getting fired." The person responsible hasn't been let go but according to Steve Wozniak, Apple is still as stringent about leaks; someone was recently fired for showing him an iPad 3G, despite the fact that Woz didn't even know it was the 3G version.
In a story submitted by Wozniak to Gizmodo, the Apple co-founder says he was shown an iPad 3G for a couple of minutes and the test engineer responsible for showing it to him was fired.
"I can tell you that the test engineer who showed me an iPad after midnight, for 2 minutes, during the iPad launch was indeed fired. I opted to spend 2 minutes with Numbers on this iPad, trying some stunts I’d seen on Apple’s website demo video. I was not told that it was a 3G model and I had no way to know that. I was told that this engineer had to wait until midnight to show it outside of Apple’s secure area. And I’m an Apple employee who he was showing it to. My guess is that he was allowed to take the iPad outside of the secure area but still not supposed to show it."
Steve goes on to say that no one was hurt when he saw the iPad and perhaps the engineer thought he was allowed to show it after April 3 (hence waiting until after midnight). Woz says he discussed it with Steve Jobs who said his being shown the iPad was, "No big deal." However, the employee was still fired.
"I did describe this to Steve Jobs the night of the iPad introduction and he said “so it’s no big deal.” We talked about family things after that for a short while. But that engineer did get fired. I’m sure that Apple HR told the engineer that it was because everyone in that same situation gets fired. Does that jive with this iPhone situation? What am I missing here?"
It's an interesting comparison. One of the bigger factors is that Gray Powell, the employee who lost the iPhone, actually lost it. It was an accident and it could happen to anyone. The iPad 3G, on the other hand, was shown to Wozniak by an employee; this person who worked for Apple physically handed it to him and watched him use it. Then again, Wozniak points out that the guy could have thought it was okay to show it to people after the launch, which is a reasonable assumption.
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