It's not at all beyond Apple to create an elaborate PR stunt via controlled product leak. Nonetheless, it seems likely that a young Apple employee made the honest mistake of leaving his next-generation iPhone 4G on a barstool at the Gourmet Haus Staudt beer garden in Redwood City after a few brewskies on the night of March 18. A young man sitting next to him at the bar noticed the phone after its owner, Gray Powell, had left.

The young man thought it was a regular 3GS iPhone, since it was camaflouged by a cleverly designed case, but upon bringing it home with intentions of eventually finding the owner, the young man opened the case and saw what appears to be Apple's next phone. Eventually, the phone ended up in the hands of Gizmodo.

The entire story of the lost phone and Gizmodo's in-depth review are worth a read for hard-core geeks.  For the rest of you, here's a rundown of what to expect sometime later this year from the next iPhone:

• front-facing camera
• camera flash
• bigger back camera
• higher resolution display (possibly 960x640), though a slightly smaller screen
  
• a secondary mic for noise cancellation 
• 16% larger battery
• more squarish design

Below is a 360-degree view courtesy of Gizmodo, which probably paid a hefty sum for the exclusive.