Nexus 4 prototype lost in a bar

It looks like Apple's iPhone is not the only one with problems of prototypes being lost inside a bar.

 

A phone identified as an unreleased Google Nexus 4 was found at the 500 Club in San Francisco’s Mission District, tech site Wired.com reported.

 

Google is to unveil the Nexus 4 at an event in New York on Oct. 29, but the event did not push through due to Storm Sandy.

 

Wired.com said bartender Jamin Barton was closing up after a slow Tuesday last month when he saw the phone, which went unclaimed all through the next day.

 

“I don’t know anything about this stuff, but I know enough to know this phone was different,” he said.

 

The phone appeared locked and had no SIM card, but had a “not for sale” sticker and a Google logo on the back, Wired.com said.

 

A tech-savvy customer agreed to make some calls to Google headquarters, but appeared shaken when Barton heard back from him.

 

"Google lost a phone ... You just got a guy fired... The Google police are coming,” he recalled the tech-savvy customer telling him.

 

He added the tech-savvy customer claimed Google "had him pretty worked up" because "(they) told him he could be an accessory or something.”

 

Nexus is Google's flagship smartphone, which Google directly works on with manufacturers to design.

 

"If the rumors turn out to be true, this will be a major upgrade on every front to the last Nexus model, released about a year ago," Wired.com said.

 

Nexus 4

 

Manufactured by LG, the Nexus 4 is to have a 4.7-inch, 1280 x 768 display, a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 CPU, and an 8-megapixel rear camera.

 

It is rumored to have Google’s Android 4.2 operating system, reportedly nicknamed “Key Lime Pie.”

 

iPhone experience

 

Wired.com said that in 2010, Apple engineer Gray Powell left an iPhone prototype at the Gourmet Haus Stadt in Redwood City.

 

One Brian Hogan took it and sold it to tech site Gizmodo for $5,000. The resulting story triggered a police search of a reporter’s home and criminal charges against two men involved.

 

Hogan and Sage Wallower pleaded no contest last October to misdemeanor theft of lost property, and were sentenced to one year probation and 40 hours of public service.

 

Apple also allegedly lost another phone at another San Francisco Mission District Bar, Cava 22, according to tech site CNET. — TJD, GMA News