If they fire him now, it's CYA. "A prototype has gone missing" might get Steve Jobs or Jon Ive or whoever fretting, but "the fourth generation iPhone is sittin

If they fire him now, it's CYA. "A prototype has gone missing" might get Steve Jobs or Jon Ive or whoever fretting, but "the fourth generation iPhone is sitting in Gizmodo's office" has to be resulting in legendary anger from the top floor, and I can totally see the manager saying "we canned the guy and we tightened our testing restrictions" to placate upper-level anger.