Because honestly, any company with a warchest like Apple's can afford real marketing. Who is this supposed to be targeted at anyway? The readers of Gizmodo and pcmag? Last time I checked, those arent even close to Apple's core market.

These "accidental" losses do not go unnoticed. Every online community, every tech blog, every kid and his dog is talking about the new iPhone. Why spend money when you can do it for free?

I dunno about you, but the last time this happened the only people that were talking about were gadget geeks like us.

The general population just kept living their lives. What got people actually talking was the actual launch and the TV spots.

Now why would you let the cat out of the bag early just to whet the appetite of a small group of hardcore geeks?

>Now why would you let the cat out of the bag early just to whet the appetite of a small group of hardcore geeks?

Because you have everything to gain and nothing to lose?

I think you underestimate the noise geeks make. I'm sure it will be reported by mainstream media. A fitting headline would be:

New iPhone scheduled to be released in October lost at a local restaurant!

I agree with the sentiment that Apple probably wouldn't do this on purpose, but the last lost prototype made it on to the cover of just about every commuter rag in the world... That's a lot of free eyeballs.

How is this not "real marketing"? It's on the front page of many websites. I don't see what "real" expensive marketing would do better.

Faux Apple mocks and speculation about the new iPhone are on the front of most gadget websites anyway, so I fail to see how they'd gain anything extra from this.

How do we even know this story is true? There's been no actual leak yet.

Because in the previous incident they went after gizmodo using lawyers with their claws out, you don't do that if your intention is to gain publicity with a faux-leak. It also is completely out of Apple's character to advertise in such a way. The kicker though is that Apple has absolutely zero motive to do such a thing, they get plenty of hype from their own official announcements. Hell, if Apple announced that the next iPhone was 3G only, had only a single core cpu, and a monochrome screen with 240x180 resolution it would be heralded as a bold new direction in smart phones.

>P.S. Why are all the comments suggesting that this is not an accidental loss down-voted?

Probably because it's easier to press a button than to write a convincing counter-argument.