Apple Will Analyze iPhone of Teen Missing at Sea (Video at source)

Apple will analyze the recovered iPhone that may hold the key to what happened last summer when two Florida teens disappeared on a boating trip, according to an agreement reached by the teens' parents in court today.

The recovered iPhone belonged to 14-year-old Austin Stephanos, who went missing while on a boat trip with Perry Cohen, also 14, in July. The Coast Guard led an eight-day search in the Atlantic, covering 50,000 nautical miles. The boys' bodies were never found.

But Austin's iPhone was on board when the boys' boat was recovered last month about 100 miles off the coast of Bermuda.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conversation Commission gave the recovered iPhone to Austin’s father, Blu Stephanos, but Perry's mother, Pam Cohen, took the issue to court, fighting to hand the phone over to experts.

At today's emergency hearing, an attorney for the Stephanos family said, "Apple has already agreed to take in the phone" and analyze it for answers.

The phone will be sent to Apple to be analyzed and all evidence will be sealed and sent back to court, according to the agreement reached this afternoon. Apple declined to comment.

Blu Stephanos released these images of the recovered phone that he says belonged to his son, Austin Stephanos.

you are telling me that my opinion is wrong, therefore you ARE THE A-HOLE here. I have every right to my opinion. Apple does not manufacture in this country and they refuse to help this country. they are anti american, they should help in our recovery efforts, but they are too busy with other countries. you are right, I don't like them, they are anti american in my opinion.

they want our money while pushing their liberals policies, which they don't do in other countries. other countries that will behead or sent them to prison for their policies that they push in the United States.

Your ignorance is showing, StCouldMoose. Yes, you are welcome to your opinion, but you aren't entitled to your own facts which are, as I pointed out, false.

First of all, Apple is about the ONLY computer manufacturer who DOES make some of their computers in the USA. Apple makes the Apple Mac Pro in Austin, Texas, and the Apple iMac in Elk Grove, California.

Secondly, Apple paid more US Corporate Income Taxes than 97% of all US Corporations in the past several years. In 2012, Apple paid more Corporate Income taxes than ALL other US Corporations, paying $1 out of every $40 of corporate income taxes collected that year. Apple's effective US Tax rate is 27.6% while Google's is under 19% and HP's is under 11% and Dell's is under 15%. Ergo, Apple does "help in our recovery efforts." The money Apple is holding off shore is money Apple EARNED off shore. Apple has been campaigning in Congress to find a way to bring that money home so it can be invested in the US, not off shore. . . again, so it can be used to aid the USA.

Some individual's at Apple have pushed a Liberal agenda, but historically Apple Inc has not made political contributions. In fact, up until four years ago, unlike almost all other tech companies, Apple did to even maintain a lobbying presence in Washington, D.C. What political contributions you heard attributed to Apple came from the Apple Employees' Political Action Committee which is, admittedly, making contributions which a skewed by a Liberal/Conservative bias of about 80%/20% bent. But that matches the Tech Industry sector in general. . . and many tech companies are worse making company contributions which Apple has generally eschewed, especially under Steve Jobs. That has changed somewhat under Tim Cook's leadership, but not as much as you might think.

Steve Jobs on his personal political involvement: "Some people have said that I shouldn’t get involved politically because probably half our customers are Republicans – maybe a little less, maybe more Dell than ours. But I do point out that there are more Democrats than Mac users so I’m going to just stay away from all that political stuff because that was just a personal thing."

You can find that Apple has been at the for-front of Worker's conditions and rights in China far longer than any other Western Company and has confronted the Chinese government on these issues. Apple has refused to turn over its source code to iOS, while on the other hand Microsoft meekly did for Windows when the Chinese demanded it.

Apple is fighting for YOUR privacy rights against the over-reaching NSA and FBI encroachment demanding unfettered power to decrypt unbreakable codes which the government demanded Apple develop in the first place so that the government agencies could use Apple devices. . . and now that same government is demanding Apple install "backdoors" into so that it can get around that unbreakable encryption to unlock it with out the necessary key. In other words they now want breakable unbreakable encryption, an impossibility.

Apple is standing up against governments in other countries as well on that unbreakable encryption where it could mean death for their customers if those governments could get into the data, contrary to your ignorant statement. . . including China.

Apple’s biggest China problem: iPhone’s strong encryption
Mac Daily News — Monday, May 2, 2016 · 12:01 pm ·
“It isn’t clear why China suspended iTunes and iBooks, but I’m betting on iPhone encryption as the key issue. Investor Carl Icahn – long an Apple bull – dumped his Apple stock over China market concerns, I see a more direct threat,” Robin Harris writes for ZDNet.
“China’s ruling party is but a (heavily armed) flea on the back of the mass of the Chinese people. With the economy slowing and the nation facing a demographic cliff with a rapidly aging population and a weak social safety net, the Party is tightening its control for fear of social unrest,” Harris writes. “Obviously, unbreakable private communications is a threat to a totalitarian regime. And China has much more leverage over Apple than Uncle Sam.”
“The most important difference between the US and China for Apple is that most all of Apple’s products are manufactured in China,” Harris writes. “The government could shut down Hon Hai – Apple’s main manufacturing vendor – in a heartbeat, crippling Apple in a matter of days.”
Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: With fear of social unrest over a slowing economy, how exactly does rapidly and further slowing the economy by laying off over a million of the country’s best-paid factory workers help China’s ruling party mitigate social unrest?
Apple is far from powerless in China.

Try to learn facts.

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