Someone leaves a prototype Pixel 3 XL in a Lyft ride and nobody seems to care

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• Some poor Lyft driver reportedly finds a prototype Pixel 3 XL in the back of his car and unlike days gone by the tale generates little attention.
• The Pixel 3 XL is expected to make its official debut in October but has been plagued by so many leaks that the handset found by the Lyft driver has nothing new to reveal.
• The ho-hum response is a sharp contrast to the days when Apple suffered a rash of misplaced prototype iPhones that skeptical observers suspected a publicity stunt.

A Lyft driver claims to have discovered a prototype Pixel 3 XL in the back of his car that one of his fares had obviously forgotten and passed on the information as well as a few snapshots of the handset to the blog Android Police.

The blog posted a story and the photos on Saturday and the response has been subdued to say the least. As Android Police reporter Corbin Davenport accurately noted, the Pixel 3 XL has suffered so many leaks leading up to its expected October unveiling that the handset found by the Lyft driver had very few secrets to reveal.

The driver said that he found the phone in the back of his car and recognized that it was an as yet unreleased Pixel from the now-famous notch and the Google logo on its back.

The driver returned the phone to the owner soon after, according to Android Police.

Back when two separate Apple employees lost possession of two prototype handsets in a span of a year, despite all the evidence to the contrary, some skeptical observers suspected that misplaced handsets was part of a publicity stunt.

Regardless of what happened back then, it's highly unlikely that Google dropped the prototype Pixel in a Lyft to drum up attention.

When these things happen, maybe it's better to suspect incompetence before conspiracy.

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