When the phone in question is a prototype of a model that is destined to sell millions, it gets noticed. But, it's important to look at this as a criminal investigation. There're is the suspiction that a criminal act occurred. A judge agreed, and issued a search warrant. Just based upon Gizmodo's coverage alone, there is enough to suspect that a crime happened. Because this is Apple property, it gets greater scrutiny, but it's not like Apple signed the warrant.
You can expect a whole other level of hurt for Gizmodo from Apple in a civil suit.
And I thought Google blocking cnet for a year was bad... Just imagine what the Apple blackout will be like for Gizmodo.
If this case is about stolen intellectual property, then Apple is most definitely involved. They have to specify the infringement on IP rights committed. If this were just a stolen phone, they wouldn't be confiscating every piece of technology he owns.
> If this were just a stolen phone, they wouldn't be confiscating every piece of technology he owns.
Nowadays that's standard operating procedure for any criminal investigation. There was an article on HN a while back about the police in SF confiscating the laptops of DJs at illegal raves and tying them up in paperwork to get their gear back just to punish them for helping out the raves (the DJs' laptops are their main source of income in a lot of cases).
Police love computers because people do a lot of their interaction with the world through them now. So by confiscating someone's computer they can get a lot of information.
