Apple's lost phone

Presumably some two weeks ago a careless Apple engineer went to a bar wearing a top-secret Apple gadget (the next generation iPhone). He got drunk (or just dizzy) and left the bar without the aforementioned gadget. Some other patron found it and handed it back to the wrong person. Then someone in the crowd realized there was something amiss with this phone.
Long story short, the phone made its way to the Gizmodo headquarters (in exchange for 5000$ as they claim) where it was properly disected and inverstigated (here). Apple's official response was to write an official letter to Gizmodo asking for the phone back.

This episode has been widely related and most commentators are just astonished at this terrible Apple mistake. However, one (or at least I) cannot but think wether the whole thing wasn't just Steve Job's latest marketing stunt. Ever since he showed off the first iPod some years ago, the man demonstrated a keen sense of showmanship. But iPhone is a product that has been around for some time and generating the hype for a second version is not as easy as the first time around. Nothing better that a stunt like this to get the buzz going, isn't it? And the luck to find someone to spot a different iPhone which looks almost identical to the old one is at least suspicious! Not to mention it getting to Gizmodo and the apparent convenient imposibility for Apple to track it down before it being disected by the guys there (for those who don't know iPhone has an application capable of traking phones and even shutting them down remotely).

While obviously nobody can argue to be sure this was a well thought out publicity campaign, I for one suspect it was. If the secret was so great I just don't understand why would Apple allow its employees (I assume it wasn't just one lonlely forgetful sap) to walk outside the company with prototype phones?