Apple fires iPhone X engineer after daughter’s hands-on video goes viral
theverge.com
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The key word here is "unreleased".
Even if she released the video after the keynote, it was filmed in Apple's Labs / Offices a month before, when the new iphone was in an unreleased state. Pretty sure their NDA forbids such things for obvious reasons. Design leaks (from videos) could potential cost companies like Apple MILLIONS in lost revenue.
NDAs are there for a reason. I see nothing wrong with what Apple did here.
The intent doesn't change the consequences for Apple.
I personally would not work for a company that has such high requirements for strict secrecy that Apple does, but this guy did, and assuredly knew that going in.
Heck we got massive firmware leaks a month or two ago, he had to of known about that and how mad people were.
I don’t know how Sony, or Samsung, or Microsoft, or other companies handle this kind of stuff. But Apple is well known for taking an extremely strong stance.
Part of me thinks the daughter should’ve known better, it’s not like she’s a 12-year-old. If this was filmed a month before it was posted then she had plenty of time to think about it. It’s not like she live streamed it in then realized later that it was a mistake.
I want to think the employee just had a lapse in judgment and was just trying to have fun with/impress his daughter. I hope that’s all it was.
It’s kind of unfortunate but it was 100% predictable what would happen the instant this went online.
Sure, but the primary cause of the leak was the dad allowing her to film it at all. Based on common sense alone (aside from internal training/warnings/etc that Apple employees must go through to ge their hands on pre-release hardware), in the presence of any camera he either should not have pulled out the phone, or told his daughter to put her phone/camera away before pulling it out.
But most people are not like me. And even imagining a twenty-something version of me I can imagine doing something like this without much thought.
One thing that struck me when watching the video - it's not just the father interacting with the camera, it's other Apple employees who very clearly know that they're being filmed. I wonder how come none of the employees said anything?
The surprise here is that the daughter was allowed to take her device into the development office. I suppose the father did the same as our host years ago by signing off and taking on liability for anything that might happen. In that sense, and I don't want to sound harsh, he unfortunately had a momentarily lapse of judgement and kinda failed his father and employee duties. Hard to balance them at the same time, but maybe certain Apple employees need to operate like, you know, Air Force R&D personnel. You go to work, but you never bring home or talk about work.
source: have visited the same cafe with friends working at apple
Having worked for Apple for 4 years this is just plain stupidity from the fathers side, allowing his daughter to film.
It's harsh but if you work at Apple you should know they take a no nonsense approach to pre-launch secrecy.
This person clearly hadn’t been given permission.
I don’t see how he couldn’t know this would happen, I wonder why he did it.
I don't remember seeing any 'normal' reviews released at this time, the type where the reviewers have full access to the device for testing in their own locations.
I don't think Apple engaging in TSA-type security and patting down everyone to make sure they aren't carrying a cell phone is a good alternative.
And if you're going to say that they wouldn't enforce the ban, just have a policy, then I'll ask why that policy would work when the existing one didn't.
Even if it's "justified" by 2000 NDAs, no way this is gonna bring good publicity and/or karma to a company.
At least it's a teenager -- if it was like a 8-12 year old kid playing with iPhone X everybody would be very agree at Apple for firing the father.
Clearly, it's lacking in serious ways.
You're not allowed to stab people in the supermarket I frequent, and yet there's nobody standing at the door frisking all the customers.
> People other than her father didn't do their job, clearly, and if a kid can sneak a digital device into Apple into a location that is apparently intended to be highly secure, then I'm forced to question their sincerity in how much emphasis they put on security.
They probably evaluated the situation and decided that rather than turn their facility in a well-defended fortress, they would simply make it clear to their employees what isn't allowed and expect them to do the right thing most of the time, and accept that sometimes the rules will get broken. That this story counts as news proves that their approach works very well most of the time.
Besides, these iPhones have cameras, if you can get on campus and get your hands on two of them, you could easily create a video and upload it, without ever bringing your own camera.
Because stabbings aren't expected there, but shop lifting is, which is why they actively work to prevent that via different methods such as mirrors and cameras.
The same thing applies here.
> they would simply make it clear to their employees what isn't allowed and expect them to do the right thing most of the time
Well, clearly this isn't what happened. After all, the filming didn't get him fired. Rather, it was the posting of the video after review copies had been sent out. He probably thought it was fine.
So clearly Apple's approach isn't working.
> That this story counts as news proves that their approach works very well most of the time.
Let's apply that same standard to something like Equifax.
Sorry, but Apple went overboard here.
Likely they did fire him for just the act of (allowing) filming, but didn't know about the video until it was posted.
> He probably thought it was fine.
I sincerely doubt that. Apple employees have it drilled into their heads that this sort of thing is absolutely not ok, and have signed legal agreements to that effect.
Hell, a friend of mine who often has very-pre-release versions of iOS on his phone at times doesn't even allow anyone else to touch his phone, based on the rules that have been laid out for him by Apple. He doesn't even let other Apple employees touch his phone unless they're also internally cleared to see what's in those pre-releases.
> Sorry, but Apple went overboard here.
They went overboard by... enforcing the terms of their employment agreement? No, they were perfectly justified here.
Watch the video.
Her dad basically toured her around at the Apple Campus. It wasn't a simple leak footage.
Is it harsh, yes. But that was the agreement, and both side were very aware of it.
Well, since it's the daughter that announced the firing while crying, Apple did very much had a choice: to fire him with a special side deal (compensation) and have him sign to not disclose it or have his family go to social media about it.
In this case it’s dead clear that the father violated policy. I mean he was right there showing it to her while she was holding a big camera.
The daughter was more than old enough to know what might happen. It seems odd to think that someone who blogs on YouTube with professional equipment wouldn’t know about Apple’s secrecy if their parent worked there. I figured she must’ve been told that certain things couldn’t be discussed before, or had to be kept secret.
Either way neither of them is blatantly innocent.
Where as if a young kid took a video and posted it while the father was asleep or something like that it would be a much more interesting case. Would Apple actually fine with him in that case?
I think they probably would but I could see a debate. As soon as I saw this video last week it was dead clear what was going to happen next.
I disagree. If he wasn't fired it sends a signal to other employees that certain leaks are ok, and once that seeps in to Apple culture, it will be difficult to stem the tide of leaks.
By firing the employee Apple is also sending a message to future and current employees that they are serious about secrecy and leaks, and you'll lose your job if you mess up.
It's saying our boundaries are clear, and we take them seriously. Do not cross them or there will be consequences.
Employees will be more careful because of this, and that will help reduce leaks in the future.
No one who works at Apple would possibly think this was a good idea. They know they’ll get fired. Unless it’s intentional. Sort of like when they “leak” things to the press.
Perhaps something to build some buzz against the ‘Apple is doomed and will only make 57 phones by Christmas!’ stories.
Nope, just an incredibly poor decision. Unless he wanted to get fired.
It’s also thought that they leak things sometimes so people will have some time to get used to the information before it’s officially announced. That may have been the case with the leaks about headphone removal on the iPhone 7 months ahead of the device’s announcement. That way when the time came the stories were about the headphone removal but also other things. If it hadn’t already been discussed a lot there’s a decent chance it would’ve ONLY been about the headphone removal.
But those kinds of leaks tend to be to reporters or bloggers that Apple is familiar with.
As far as I know they’ve never actually done any “geurrila“ style stuff.
What I was more surprised about was how much slack people seem to give the daughter, she’s not 12, she’s graduated from college and married
There are many ways to solve this with everybody saving face from my point of view.
He chose to pull out a pre-relase phone (that he was under strict orders to keep secret) in front of his vlogging daughter's DSLR camera while she was filming. Nothing in that scenario was out of his control.
Her dad basically toured her around at the Apple Campus. It wasn't a simple leak footage.
You aren't allowed film in the location they filmed, the filming took place before the phone even shipped to carriers, and they released the film before the ship date. And to top it off, there's no way to claim after viewing the video that the father had no awareness; it was practically an interview.
Should Apple have fired him? I don't know. Was it a willful violation? Absolutely it was.
Are you sure? Because they clearly had no issue allowing the filming to take place.