Recent court documents filed by Apple in the April loss of an iPhone 4G prototype and its sale to a tech site claim the company could face a substantial loss as a result of consumers seeing the device prematurely.
“By publishing details about the phone and its features, sales of current Apple products are hurt wherein people that would have otherwise purchased a currently existing Apple product would wait for the next item to be released,” said Apple lawyer George Riley in an affidavit unsealed by San Mateo, Calif., Judge Clifford Cretan on Friday.
The affidavit was given to a detective in support of a warrant to search the home of Jason Chen, the Gizmodo editor who reportedly paid $5,000 for the device.
“What they are talking about is that when end users know a new phone is coming, they stop buying the current version, leaving those holding stock to reduce prices to move the inventory,” says Ken Dulaney, an analyst for Gartner Research.
But one week before the iPhone 4G photos and a breakdown were published, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the 4.0 version of the iPhone operating system. While that OS will work on most current models, Apple has released new iPhone hardware every summer since 2007.
Still, Dulaney said, this speculation may not have trickled down to a wide audience if not for the prototype leak, which received national media coverage outside of the dedicated technology beat. “We in the press and analyst area keep up on these things while the consumer doesn’t,” he said. “This just made it more public.”
Apple’s soaring stock price hasn’t shown any signs of harm, trading at $258 on Monday, compared to $247 on April 19, when the photos were published.
And a new report on DigiTimes, a Taiwanese technology daily, projects that Foxconn, Apple’s handset…