Smartphones, stupid people: Google’s nexus of numbskulls

I think we can all safely conclude that prototype smartphones and alcohol do not mix. After Apple lost not one but two ubersupersecret iPhone prototypes in Bay Area booze dispensaries, a Google phone turned up sans owner at the 500 Club in San Francisco’s Mission District last month.

And not just any Google phone, but the brand-new Nexus 4 the G-people were supposed to officially unveil today in New York City until Hurricane Sandy had other ideas. As some wag at Cnet tweeted: “Google infringes on Apple’s patent for losing prototype phones in bars.” Wish I’d said that.

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Wired’s Evan Hansen has the details about how the phone was found and Google’s frantic efforts to get it back.

The unit was found by 500 Club bartender Jamin Barton, who doesn’t know much about smartphones but knew this one was unusual. He asked a geek friend named Dave (why are they always named Dave?) to look into it. Dave contacted Google and apparently got the circuitry scared out of him.

Dave agreed to make some calls to Google HQ. When Barton heard back from him the next day, Dave was shaken.

“Dave” — Barton says he does not know his full name — “sort of freaked out. ‘Google lost a phone,’ he told me. ‘You just got a guy fired…. The Google police are coming'”

After that, the texts and phone messages from Dave became a torrent.

“I probably shouldn’t have shown it to him. But I did. He didn’t work for Google, but Google had him pretty worked up. They told him he could be an accessory or something.”

When the Google police showed up at the bar, in the form of global investigations and intelligence manager Brian Katz, Barton and the phone were elsewhere. To get rid of him, the bartender on call sent Katz to the police station around the corner, where there just happened to be a riot underway because of a police shooting of a suspected gang member — just another boring night in the smartphone business.

Ultimately, an attorney acted as a go-between, verifying Katz’s identity, then taking the Nexus model from Barton and handing it over later that night.

Unlike with the prototype iPhone 4, which was left in a San Jose hofbrau by Apple engineer Gray Powell in March 2010 and later “loaned” to Gizmodo for $5,000, Barton wasn’t trying to cash in on his find. He did secure the promise of a new smartphone from Google, if he kept the story quiet until after the now-cancelled press conference. He also got an undisclosed amount from Wired for photos taken of the unit.

All of that arm-twisting bought Google exactly two weeks’ worth of nondisclosure; during the week of Oct. 8, details and photos of the new Nexus leaked out onto the Interwebs, which issued a collective meh and went back to generating memes about sneezing cats. Mind you, all this happened weeks before the Giants swept the World Series and San Francisco collectively went apes**t, rioting, burning buses, and acting like a city that actually cares about professional sports. (It doesn’t, not really.)

What is it about smartphones and bars? Why do these things keep happening? Is it really that hard to remember to leave the damned thing at home when you’re planning to get your drunk on? Hello?

My feeling is that Google should consider itself lucky. Heck, it’s already gotten more publicity for the lost prototype than it would for the genuine article, at least from non-phandroid news outlets.

Still, I think the lesson for tech engineers is clear: If you must drink, do not test-drive.

What have you lost in a bar lately? Post your lost-and-found items below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “Smartphones, stupid people: Google’s nexus of numbskulls,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Field blog, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.