How was he supposed to find the Apple employee, and how could he have known until he brought the phone home and played with it that it was a 4G? He's just some goof, nobody at Apple would likely talk to him. What else to do but give it to somebody who
can talk to somebody important at Apple? The story said he walked around the bar asking if anybody knew the guy who left the phone. I say "slightly shady" because honestly, giving it up to a tech blog is not the worst thing in the world you could do with it.
It's shady because he profited from it, yes. But the act of giving it to a news source is not something to judge him for--especially since he reported from the get-go, BEFORE Chen's house got searched, that he tried to return it to Apple. Apple probably didn't want to answer him because they knew it would fuel the publicity fire, and the guy could still report it to somebody like Gizmodo, so they left him in the dark, hoping he'd go away.
It seems like the question arising here is whether or not this is theft:
Quote: "CAL. PEN. CODE ยง 485 :
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."
Given how little we know about the minute-to-minute actions of all parties involved, and since the guy did say he tried to call Apple, who are we to judge whether or not his efforts to find the owner were reasonable and just? The guy is innocent until proven guilty.
And, considering that he's just some schmoe who happened to find an iPhone, I don't see why Apple or anyone should care about whether this guy broke penal code 485 or not. Gizmodo already published the story, the internet already knows about the 4G, and taking punitive action against this guy--who probably fits the exact demographic of your typical Gizmodo reader and iPhone/Apple in general customer, it's a bad move with regard to PR.
