OP here.

First of all, thank you [and everyone here] for adding your thoughts.

The goal of using hyperbole in the title was twofold: 1. hope to get out of the slush pile of "new" 2. someone might have specific knowledge of a similar situation wrt apple. Even with the click-bait title, it just BARELY got out of slush with 3 votes.

My son and I had a good talk. He teared up a bit, but I could see determination to not get ripped off again. I think he will internalize that motivation to his benefit. He will not likely, though, submit his best ideas to contests. He does all the design, code, graphics and music.