See, the problem is that according to the law you quoted simply picking up and taking the lost phone home is itself not equivalent to theft. You must prove that no "reasonable and just efforts" were made. That paragraph doesn't even say all reasonable and just efforts or even that the most reasonable and just efforts (such as returning it to the beer garden) must be made. Only that some reasonable and just effort must be made. It doesn't even define success as a test for determining if an effort was reasonable and just. Calling and contacting Apple when you realize you have a prototype that has been deactivated remotely so you cannot identify the user is reasonable. The law does not support the blanket assertion that all lost property is stolen. It's just more nuanced than you want to believe. Sorry your absolutism doesn't jive with reality.
You seem to think that language is there to protect owners of lost property. In reality it's there to protect finders of lost property i.e. business owners so that they can dispose of abandoned junk.
I personally believe that law is applicable in this case. If you find someone's phone in the bar, returning it to the bartender is a natural and simple choice, at least in my world.
Selling the phone to the highest bidder was clearly wrong. Even if taking the phone was impulsive decision, holding an "auction" was a well calculated move.
http://gizmodo.com/5520479/a-letter-apple-wants-its-secret-i...
"One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft."
CAL. PEN. CODE § 485