But guy had already returned the phone - so for what purpose was the search in any case - and why not just call him in - it's not like he posted his own face on his own blog or anything? Apple could be perceived as going too far to protect an average design here.
Well that's sort of the part that John (and many other journalists, comedic or not) glossed over: the whole theft of property thing. It's not about recovering the phone, because this isn't Apple's civil suit. This is a criminal investigation. And while Apple may have been instrumental to getting it started so promptly, it's really out of their hands at this point.
I think that many journalists are sort of waltzing around the edge of this story because at least a few of them understand that there could be some serious repercussions on how shield laws are interpreted in America.
It's a very complex issue that doesn't really lend itself well to a comedy treatment. You have a very shady scenario with an Apple engineer that Gizmodo claims must have “left the phone there” (but is that true? probably we'll never know). You have a shady scenario with the finder who somehow knew or was simply a shitty enough person not to return a lost phone to the bar (that's what I'd do, and what I hope any decent human would do). You've got the embarrassing situation of Denton's gleeful love of checkbook journalism. And now you've got potential criminal activity. It's a total shit show of Silicon Valley fail, no matter what angle you look at it from.
Daily Show just chose the funniest angle to view it from, but definitely not the most accurate or comprehensive. That's fine; outside of political satire they really don't have any assumed duty or responsibility to their viewership.
I am trying to figure out the criminal aspect of this as (to me) it makes no sense to search the guy who returned the product but it possibly could make sense to investigate the guy that "found" it. (In his story the phone was in a silicon case so you could not see the design). If I return someones' wallet the police don't bust down my door, so what (apart from the "Apple") is different here?
I suspect you'd be embroiled in a civil suit if you purchased someone else's wallet from a 3rd party and then posted in an international news publication about its contents.
That doesn't sound like criminal activity to you?
As for why they busted down Chen's door, specifically? No idea. I'm pretty sure that was not Apple's idea. If it was, we have bigger problems than how to interpret CA theft and shield laws.
