UPDATE: As has been consistently reported, it appears that i was incorrect and that Apple did not, in fact, intentionally leak the new iPhone. I still find it incredibly strange that Apple would the prototype to such a young, inconsequential employee. I’d still like to know why they thought that was a good idea.

What is all this hubbub Gizmodo is reporting this morning that Apple did not leak the iPhone 4 prototype out to the public? On the contrary, I think they did and here is why.

In an admittedly great blog post this morning on Gizmodo by Joel Johnson, Giz’s editor-at-large, Johnson details why he believes Apple didn’t intentionally leak the iPhone basically because there was nothing to gain from the move. I happen to disagree, as it seems to me that Apple had much to gain from this move, and the circumstances surrounding the “lost” iPhone 4 seem ridiculous.

Much To Gain

Let’s just right off the bat acknowledge that previous Marketing Executive of the Cupertino company, John Martellaro, had admitted that Apple has intentionally leaked product specs, pictures or even given out false information as part of their PR strategy. If we look back to January, when everyone was sure that the iPad was to be called the iSlate and that it was going to cost “about $1,000″…those leaks were coming from Apple themselves. What did Apple stand to gain from these leaks? Well contrary to what Johnson has wrote, all this PR is about Social Engineering/Media buzz and that kind of buzz (not Google’s version) is good to have for a product launch 2 or 3 months away.

This is the single biggest story of the year thus far. Every tech-media blog has written about it, it has been retweeted 10′s of thousands of times and the speculation will continue for the next 2 to 3 months. This is ALL free advertising. FREE! Tell me, why that is not a desire of a company who leads the industry in how they handle and control their PR?

This Is Just The Beginning

OK. So now the public has an idea of the kind of hardware that will be in the next gen iPhone. The buzz doesn’t stop here though. Now that the hardware has been leaked, we can only speculate about the kind of software that will run on that hardware. A front-facing camera? Hello iChat with video support! What about a mobile version of Photo Booth or Aperture?

There has also been a lot of talk about how the iPad is a content consumption device and much less of a content creation device. I do believe that before the mobile revolution, Apple wasn’t about content consumption but content creation. Their product line was, and still is, mostly about content creation whether it be the hardware like high end Mac Pro’s used almost exclusively in the video editing community for their insanely powerful processors or the software of OS X that allows dragging and dropping of files almost everywhere and features such as Expose that increases work-flow by some 40%.

The point is that maybe, just maybe Apple is trying to fuel the mobile content creation market, which has barely been tapped. Devices with the kind of hardware that was in that prototype have this ability, and the excitement, for me at least, to push the buzz through until the actual unveiling.

Gray Powell, and Apple – Come On…

Gray Powell. The young 27 year old software developer who is the one who supposedly “lost” the iphone. It is absolutely ridiculous that Apple, the most secretive consumer device manufacturer on the face of this planet, would go from bolting down the iPad to tables at Apple HQ in order to prevent a leak, to giving a young, 27 year old, just another software developer at Apple, the prototype of a flagship product to freely walk around with, and obviously use enough where he brings it with him to social situations where anyone with an eye looking over his soldier could have seen that it was a different kind of iPhone.

It is absolutely ridiculous that Apple, the most secretive consumer device manufacturer on the face of this planet, would go from bolting down the iPad to tables at Apple HQ in order to prevent a leak, to giving a young, 27 year old, just another software developer at Apple, the prototype of a flagship product to freely walk around with, and obviously use enough where he brings it with him to social situations where anyone with an eye looking over his soldier could have seen that it was a different kind of iPhone.

You know, I was going to write more, but then while doing research I just stumbled across this fan page of Gray Powell and after reading the comments, I think I’ve made a good case for why Apple intentionally socially engineered this whole thing. If you can’t see how controlled this entire thing was by Apple, from the open letter to Gizmodo stating it is indeed an iPhone to this Facebook page, it just screams everything that Apple has ever tried to avoid; and that alone makes this story bogus.

P.S. – I want one.