Jun
07

Apple Store Detains Teens For Downloading app to iPhone

Four teenagers in Palo Alto, California, say they were detained and photographed by an Apple store for downloading a third-party application to an iPhone.

The teens said that the manager of the Apple store called police after finding the racing game, “Raging Thunder” had been downloaded to the phone. High school senior Daniel Fukuba was showing the iPhone’s features to his friends when he downloaded the game.

After the teens left the store a manager chased them down and ordered them to return the store and called police. Sgt. Sandra Brown of the Palo Alto Police said they were called to the Apple store but no arrests were made.

The teens say they were lectured by the manager about the dangers of hacking and photographed so their pictures could be shared with other Apple stores in the area. One teen said it was “so they’d be on the lookout for us,” the Mercury News reported. The teens were detained for a total of two and a half hours.

The boys say they were told that they were banned from all Apple stores, but an Apple spokesman said that was not true. “They were not banned from that store or any other store,” said Apple spokesman Steve Dowling.