Founder of New iPhone 4G Prototype Named: Brian J. Hogan

by NowPublic Staff | April 29, 2010 at 03:20 pm

721 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

Brian J. Hogan: Found iPhone 4G Prototype

Wired News has tracked down the man who found the new iPhone 4G - his name is Brian J. Hogan and he was paid $5,000 by Gizmodo which which broke the story - setting off a storm on the Internet, including accusations of check book journalism and a police raid of Jason Chen's home, an editor at Gizmodo. Wired News reports;

Police Raid Gizmodo, Jason Chen
iPhone Leak, Gizmodo

...he believed the payment was for allowing the site exclusive access to review the phone. Gizmodo emphasized to him “that there was nothing wrong in sharing the phone with the tech press,” according to his attorney Jeffrey Bornstein.

Wired.com identified Hogan as the finder of the prototype by following clues on social network sites, and then confirmed his identity with a source involved in the iPhone find.

The phone belonged to an Apple software engineer, Gray Powell, who lost it a German beer bar. Apparently Brian J. Hogan found it, discovered it was the new iPhone 4G, tried several times to contact Apple with no luck, and only then contacted Gizmodo under the assumption they would return it to Apple.

Hogan has been interviewed by California law enforcement officials and so far has not been charged with a crime