LG Nexus 4 gets lost in a bar. Really.

The LG Nexus 4 is following in the footsteps of the Apple iPhone 4 and Apple iPhone 4S. No, it has nothing to do with sales or popularity or anything related to the performance of the phone. But just like Apple's iconic smartphone back in April 2010 and again in August 2011, the LG Nexus 4 was accidentally left behind in a bar. In April 2010, the stakes were higher because the Apple iPhone 4 hadnot yet been seen by the public and the design was all new. No one knew if the device was really the next iPhone or just some fake. Of course, it did turn out to be the real thing. The device ended up getting purchased by Gizmodo, allegedly for $5,000, and the cops raided  the editor's home. Eventually, the device was returned to Apple.

Darned if the same thing didn't happen the next year with the Apple iPhone 4S. This time, Apple joined the cops in raiding a person's home and the device was never found. Instead, the cops did a thorough investigation of their role in the whole event and an Apple security chief ended up resigning.

The LG Nexus 4

This year, it was the LG Nexus 4 that ended uplost in a bar in San Francisco. The incident took place in September when not too much was known about the handset. Even so, when the bartender, Jim Barton, got a look at it, he thought it was just one of 20 smartphones that are left behind in the bar every week. The device was locked and could not be opened. Strangely, Barton didn't think twice about the "Not for sale" sticker or the Google logo on the back of the phone. The next day, the phone remained unclaimed and Barton decided to share his secret with a steady customer named Dave Hodge who happened to know about the LG Nexus 4 and realized that they had an important device on their hands. So Hodge decided to contact Google and the next day he came running into the bar shaken up. He told Barton that Google told him that it had lost a phone and that an employee got canned over it. Google even told Dave that he could be an accessory to a crime.

Finally, bartender Barton decided that he would turn the phone over to a Google representative providing the person had some identification on him. On the way to retrieve the LG Nexus 4 was Brian Katz, global investigations and intelligence manager at Google. With a military air about him, Katz was disappointed to find out that Barton had left the bar early that night. Eventually, Katz got the phone back and promised the bartender a free LG Nexus 4 if he kept quiet about the entire incident until Monday's press conference ends. Oops. Barton now might not qualify for the phone, but Wired paid him a fee for the photos you see here.

Ironically, two weeks after giving up the phone, pictures of the device leaked. On Monday, Google will announce the LG Nexus 4 at its media event.

LG Nexus 4 gets left in a bar

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Bartender Jim Barton

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LG Nexus 4

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Customer Dave Hodge