Apple Fires Engineer After His Daughter's iPhone X Video Goes Viral (engadget.com) 326
"In a brutal reminder of the secrecy tech companies enforce on employees, Apple recently fired an employee after his daughter posted a video of the iPhone X," writes long-time Slashdot reader HockeyPuck. Engadget reports:
His daughter took down the video as soon as Apple requested it, but the takedown came too late to prevent the clip from going viral, leading to seemingly endless reposts and commentary... [I]t's important to stress that this wasn't a garden variety iPhone X. As an employee device, it had sensitive information like codenames for unreleased products and staff-specific QR codes. Combine that with Apple's general prohibition of recording video on campus (even at relatively open spaces like Caffe Macs) and this wasn't so much about maintaining the surprise as making sure that corporate secrets didn't get out. Apple certainly didn't want to send the message that recording pre-release devices was acceptable. All the same, it's hard not to sympathize -- the [radiofrequecy] engineer had poured his heart into the iPhone X, only to be let go the week before the handset reaches customers.
In a new follow-up video, the former Apple engineer's daughter says "I had no idea this was a violation," adding that her father "takes full reponsibility for letting me film his iPhone X." Here's some more quotes from her video.
In a new follow-up video, the former Apple engineer's daughter says "I had no idea this was a violation," adding that her father "takes full reponsibility for letting me film his iPhone X." Here's some more quotes from her video.
- "I made this little innocent video that was just supposed to be a fun memory of me and my family... It suddenly went viral, and I have no idea how my video got so much attention considering how many other iPhone X videos there are out there from other YouTubers..."
- "At the end of the day when you work for Apple, it doesn't matter how good of a person you are, if you break a rule, they just have no tolerance. They had to do what they had to do. I'm not mad at Apple. I'm not going to stop buying Apple products. Rules are in place for the happiness and for the safety of workers, and my dad takes absolutely full responsibility for the one rule that he broke."
- "It was an innocent thing, and to be honest I think Apple is going to do a much better job from here on out in addressing the rules and making sure that everybody is aware of the rules. And it was an innocent mistake, and he fully apologizes."
- "We're not angry. We're not bitter. My dad had a really great run at Apple, and he appreciates that company for everything they did for his career. My dad's gonna be okay... And yeah, I don't think he deserves this, but we're okay. We're good."
- [She breaks into tears when defending her father from critical commenters on YouTube.] "Apple really did like my dad. And they let him go. Because -- because he broke a rule. So my advice to people out there is to just not overlook rules when you're in the workplace or when you're in school or when you're at home."
X employee (Score:5, Funny)
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She'll get a Lumia for Christmas.
As they're in US, that's illegal. 8th Amendment.
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8th amendment only applies to government so he is free to punish her this way.
Still cruel and unusual. Also EVIL. (Score:3, Insightful)
Too bad the EVIL is NOT unusual. That's just how corporations work in their mindless and soulless pursuit of infinite profit.
Spent a while searching through this promising topic in search of funny or insightful comments. Remarkably disappointing. There was a recent article with a little wayback machine for old Slashdot articles, and each time I tested it I seemed to find much more humor and insight in the ancient history of Slashdot.
Actually I regard this topic of being fired for theoretically threatening p
Re:X employee (Score:5, Insightful)
She's a kid who explained she didn't know she broke a rule, and her father takes full responsibility for not informing her so that the rule wouldn't have been broken. It was his job, his workplace, and his decision to bring his daughter to work... and didn't tell her not to film the visit, nor did he stop her at any time while chaperoning her through sensitive areas to inform her to stop filming/delete the video / not post it online for others to see. This was all on the parent, not the child. He may as well have brought a film crew into the R&D area. What moron doesn't have a "what not to do while on this trip" conversation with their child before going into a sensitive area? Who in their right mind would think a kid of this day and age wouldn't have a phone on them and wouldn't be using it for social media unless you explicitly told them to put the thing away or took it from them? How hard is it to tell your own kid NOT to take any photo or video while at daddy's super secretive workplace? Or to at least smack the device out of their hands when you see them holding it up filming?!?!?
Guy deserved to be fired and made an example of, but still sucks for everyone -- Apple loses an otherwise good employee and he loses a sweet job... and a family is impacted by it.
also, you mean *sore and *college , though butts soaring through the air and expensive photo collages are interesting images to invoke.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
She's a kid
Not a kid.
Just childish.
Re:X employee (Score:4, Informative)
It's more even that that. The dad appears in the video, and is at one stage demoing animated emojis to his daughters camera. He just didn't seem to be aware that this was a problem himself.
Re:X employee (Score:4, Informative)
Going by her YouTube videos, she's an adult with her own house, her own husband (who already graduated from college) and a Pilates studio that she's selling (or sold) because she prefers to make movies.
Her father isn't likely to be deciding anything about what phone she buys, she's probably done with education and hitting an adult (even your child) is assault, which is a punishable crime even if the victim doesn't want to cooperate in pressing charges.
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Except that beatings don't work. You get the same bad behavior, just now it's done in secret with care taken that the parents don't find out about it.
It's definitely not the way to raise children that grow into proper adults. There's a reason why there are so many restrictions on that stuff that didn't exist back in the '20s.
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you know these Silicon Valley types
The guy allowed a breach of NDA. That's a fundamental rule in any shop that deals with products that ship more than 10 units per production round. He'll never work at that level again, as far as the big end of Silicon Valley is concerned, his name is mud.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The guy allowed a breach of NDA. That's a fundamental rule in any shop that deals with products that ship more than 10 units per production round.
Your comments sound fascist and unduly harsh to me. That's extremely disturbing. The fact that people actually upvoted this comment is even worse.
If this post is any indication, we're headed to a dreadful future where people defend undue punishment for "breaking the rules". That is the essence of a totalitarian society.
He is lucky (Score:5, Informative)
He is lucks they only fired him. Apple is extremely aggressive when it comes to this type of thing. He is also lucky that he is out now. My current company, and many others would never hire someone from Apple who was there for more than 5 years and they are most like a person who was a heave coolaid drinker and thinks they are better than everyone else.
I worked for an Apple "Partner" in the past. My God, the hoops they had us jump through were insane. We eventually told them, thanks, but no thanks.
The experience of dealing with Apple is the reason while to this day, I refuse to buy Apple branded anything. Biggest bunch of self righteous smug motherfuckers I have ever met in my professional career.
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Re:He is lucky (Score:5, Interesting)
Firing is still harsh. Plus, if he was an important employee, it will be costly to replace him. It's possible he was already on the edge, one more mistake from being fired, and this was the last straw. But it doesn't sound like that at all. His daughter could be totally mistaken, her parents could have spun a big illusion to keep her from worrying, but she claims Apple liked him.
Apple could have docked him some pay. Have him not get the bonus, accept a pay cut, even demand he take an unpaid leave of absence. Summarily firing him sends all kinds of bad messages, like that they think great engineers grow on trees and everyone leaps at the opportunity to work for the great, mighty Apple, and that they don't care about morale and expect the rest their employees to drink deep of the company Koolaid that this firing was totally justified. Must be a stressful place to work, a worse sweatshop than most top tech companies, many of which have a bad reputation that way.
There's also a small risk this could backfire on Apple. Apple's fans and customers could feel bad about what happened, and punish Apple for it. Apple is acting just like you say, smug and self-righteous, and that too could become part of this issue which comes back to haunt them. I doubt this though. Their customers probably will never notice, and that's a shame.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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I think it's not just about repercussions, but also about sending a message. Every now and then someone takes a step WAY over the line and Apple has to give them a public flogging to remind the rest of the employees that they need to take that NDA they signed very seriously.
People complaining about Apple being nasty..... no, not really. If Apple had filed a lawsuit against this guy, then OK that's taking it too far. But they ARE within their right to do so. So anyone that says they "took it too far" isn
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Firing is still harsh. Plus, if he was an important employee, it will be costly to replace him.
Apple doesn't have important employees any more. If they did, maybe they would have some magic, but they don't. It's replaceable cogs all the way down.
Apple is acting just like you say, smug and self-righteous, and that too could become part of this issue which comes back to haunt them. I doubt this though. Their customers probably will never notice, and that's a shame.
Keeping the prototype out of the hands of others was part of his job, and he didn't do it. As it so happens, it was a part of his job that Apple takes seriously. This is not news or surprising to anyone. His willful disregard for his employer means that he should be fired.
Re:He is lucky (Score:4, Informative)
This is not news or surprising to anyone. His willful disregard for his employer means that he should be fired.
Meh: it's just a phone. An expensive one, sure, but still just a phone.
The government generally has a much more pragmatic attitude: they have been doing it longer and the secrets are more important (life or death in some cases). What they have found the hard way by bitter experience is if you massively crack down on rule breakers then you give people a really satrong incentive to cover up when they fuck up.
That actually tends to compound things and make bad mistakes really really bad.
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Meh: it's just a phone. An expensive one, sure, but still just a phone.
No, that's the point. Apple's selling hype, not just phones. And he gave the hype away for free. All that leaves is a phone, and lots of companies are able to sell those.
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His daughter generated unscheduled hype. Messing with Apple's carefully laid plans.
Depending on just how viral the video went, she might have earned a few years worth of bay area engineer's salary. She would have had to have the parts in place with youtube etc.
I doubt it was very lucrative, just not enough fanbois.
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The government generally has a much more pragmatic attitude
Yeah, secure points of entry.
It is the engineer's fault because they don't have site security; but in a perfect world somebody else would have prevented the situation and he wouldn't have to be good at it.
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Apple doesn't have important employees any more.
Presumably a radio frequency engineer is doing QA on their implementation of the radio chip's reference design, so easily replaced. Secrecy is most of the job, the only reason to even do it in-house when production happens somewhere else.
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It's possible he was already on the edge, one more mistake from being fired, and this was the last straw. But it doesn't sound like that at all.
There are zero tolerance rules for even the best out there. The better companies enforce them equally on all employees.
Apple could have docked him some pay. Have him not get the bonus, accept a pay cut, even demand he take an unpaid leave of absence. Summarily firing him sends all kinds of bad messages
That depends on the circumstances. If there was clear policy that was broken and the punishment was end of employment then firing him sends all kinds of GOOD messages, like the ones that say "we stand by the rules we set". I'm not sure about this case specifically but Apple is quite well known for this kind of thing.
drink deep of the company Koolaid that this firing was totally justified. Must be a stressful place to work
You're making a lot of completely unjustified assumptions.
Apple's fans and customers could feel bad about what happened, and punish Apple for it.
Apple fans and cu
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Firing is still harsh. Plus, if he was an important employee, it will be costly to replace him. It's possible he was already on the edge, one more mistake from being fired, and this was the last straw. But it doesn't sound like that at all. His daughter could be totally mistaken, her parents could have spun a big illusion to keep her from worrying, but she claims Apple liked him.
As the saying goes, the graveyard is full of indispensable people. I'm sure he was a good employee, but he will be replaced.
Apple could have docked him some pay. Have him not get the bonus, accept a pay cut, even demand he take an unpaid leave of absence. Summarily firing him sends all kinds of bad messages
Firing him sent exactly the message they wanted, leak company secrets and you get fired.
Apple more than any other IT company is a marketing company, the secrecy that surrounds their new products is part of their marketing campaign. That means you need to be extremely harsh on someone who leaks anything because a single screenshot can spill the beans on a major new product announcement.
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I have a different view. Ever notice how every single time Apple releases a big new product there's a controversy? Remember when some Apple employee forgot their prototype iPhone in a bar?
I think he was going to leave, anyway, and the PR folks put together a cool scenario where he got fired because of his daughter's video. And now people on Slashdot are talking about Apple and iPhone X. Or, go fully cynical with me - she's not his daughter, he never worked at Apple and they're both simply paid actors.
I
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brand an apple logo into his forehead...
So you're saying Harry Potter worked for Opel?
Re:He is lucky (Score:5, Interesting)
He is lucks they only fired him. Apple is extremely aggressive when it comes to this type of thing. He is also lucky that he is out now. My current company, and many others would never hire someone from Apple who was there for more than 5 years and they are most like a person who was a heave coolaid drinker and thinks they are better than everyone else.
I worked for an Apple "Partner" in the past. My God, the hoops they had us jump through were insane. We eventually told them, thanks, but no thanks.
The experience of dealing with Apple is the reason while to this day, I refuse to buy Apple branded anything. Biggest bunch of self righteous smug motherfuckers I have ever met in my professional career.
Really? In a market where there's a shortage of qualified and experienced engineers and developers your company would not hire a an engineer who worked for one of the most successful device manufacturers on the planet for years because he is a 'Cool Aid drinking' .. 'self righteous smug motherfucker' ... 'who think he's better than everybody else'? If I was hiring engineers I would not turn my nose up at a dyed in the wool Android developer if he was qualified and an experienced coder even though I am no particular fan of the Android OS or Google. Same goes for Microsoft developers, I may not like Microsoft as a company but their engineers and developers are not radioactive space zombies who breathe in oxygen and exhale mustard gas. Apart from being a generalisation of ridiculous proportions, that whole post is mostly just a steaming pile of fanboy whining that make you sound like the love child of a drama queen and a snow flake, you really should get over yourself.
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Really? In a market where there's a shortage of qualified and experienced engineers and developers
What? Who told you that? There's a surplus of them. Tech people have literally gone into other lines of work because of the lack of jobs. Ongoing consolidation in the tech industry means that there are ever-less jobs, not more. Loads of those open positions are not designed to be filled; they are designed to justify outsourcing. Apple has probably got literally filing cabinets full of resumes and databases stuffed with application data, they will be able to replace this guy (assuming he wasn't redundant and
Whoosh (Score:2)
Really? In a market where there's a shortage of qualified and experienced engineers and developers
This is true.
Tech people have literally gone into other lines of work because of the lack of jobs.
This is also true.
Can you truly see why these two things can not be true at the same time? Read carefully the original line, then think about the people who cannot find work...
Ongoing consolidation in the tech industry means that there are ever-less jobs
Ongoing consolidation, while at the same time Amazon alone do
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Well, you're supposing people are always rational in their hiring decisions. There's a lot of emotion and "gut" thinking involved in most hires, so much so that I think of rationality as a kind of competitive advantage.
And by the way irrationality is a two way street when it comes to employment. Take ageism. If you believed that employees and employers were entirely rational it wouldn't be a problem. An older employee would take a lower paid engineering job rather than an even lower paying non-engineerin
Gut feeling is rationality at work (Score:2)
Well, you're supposing people are always rational in their hiring decisions.
They pretty much are; just not how you think.
There's a lot of emotion and "gut" thinking involved in most hires
That is the ultimate in rationality, because your subconscious is much better at judging the quality of a human being quickly than you are, especially in terms of working with them over a long period of time. It's the same brain performing intellectual thought as it is issuing snap assessment of character.
Almost never have
Re: He is lucky (Score:2, Troll)
Re: He is lucky (Score:2)
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I suspect your dislike of Apple isn't shared by your company at all. It'd be a pretty dumb move for a technology company not to hire Apple developers if they were available and affordable.
Re:He is lucky (Score:5, Funny)
Somehow I doubt that's a requirement from the company that starts their product names with a lowercase letter, then capitalizes the second.
Re: He is lucky (Score:2)
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Funny, as a native speaker with a high standardized English comprehension level I was also curious what was wrong, mostly just so I could laugh at the false-pedant. Unfortunately, it was just typos and not even entertaining.
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So don't hit it until you're sure?
No Preview on mobile (Score:2)
Last I checked, there was no Preview button in Slashdot's mobile view.
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Maybe, but the Preview button only helps with proper tag closing. Spelling should be even easier on mobile, because the keyboard features take care of that (through autocorrect - not perfect but it's a prop).
Re:He is lucky (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not the parent poster, but at a company that has dealt with Apple.
At least in a business relationship, they are quite abusive to their vendors. Of course, every company is as abusive to their vendors as they can afford to be, and Apple's position is such they can be really abusive.
Beyond that, they would also put out crazy requirements that would cause expensive work to meet, and then select a vendor that didn't meet any of those requirements because ultimately the only metric that matters is cost. This wouldn't be so bad if they did not insist up front that these things were a hard requirement and not doing them would mean disqualification. The only time my business 'won', it meant bidding under cost, foolishly thinking that would kickstart the relationship, but no. We are also in the list of companies that go for the greener pastures in the market and happily ignore apple, as there is plenty of money to be made elsewhere.
The thing is I wonder how their long term quality will be, if this is their attitude. As they ignore their requirements for cost savings, and more and more companies learn that bidding under cost isn't going to work, what happens to Apple?
Re: He is lucky (Score:2)
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At least in a business relationship, they are quite abusive to their vendors. Of course, every company is as abusive to their vendors as they can afford to be,
I think this is more at the big end of town, where even a typo can cost millions of dollars. This is why I moved out of big business into medium sized. You still have enough money to do cool stuff, but you don't have as many over-ambitious fuckwits trying to shit on you at every opportunity. Now my vendors are more like partners. We work together and most people behave like adults.
An unfortunate incident (Score:2)
This is an example of bad things happening to good people. It was an accident. It seems neither father nor daughter blame Apple. Indeed, I get the impression that Apple acted because they felt the credibility of their rules needed to be protected, not because they thought there was any malice involved in posting the video.
I feel sorry for them. They seem like a fine family.
Re:An unfortunate incident (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to target you personally, but "the credibility of their rules needed to be protected" is a stupid and lame reason to fire someone. In the long run, *rule* is completely irrelevant. What's important is the goal the rule is trying to achieve - not leaking any product info early.
Now, maybe pour encourager les autres firings will actually achieve that. But I doubt it. From what I read, they're firing him for making a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes, even big ones. The key is to keep employees who learn from their mistakes, so that you don't end up paying the cost of a different employee maing the same mistake again. Now, maybe this was one of several incidents (and they don't need to all be leaks), but I didn't see any evidence of that.
What it really send a message about is a draconian corporate culture. It tells other employees to live in fear. And random fear at that. Robert Powell, the engineer who lost a prototype iPhone at a bar years ago, still appears to be employed there according to LinkedIn. So now it looks more like a campaign of terror than "rule enforcement".
Re:An unfortunate incident (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to target you personally, but "the credibility of their rules needed to be protected" is a stupid and lame reason to fire someone.
In a vacuum, that might be true. However...
In the long run, *rule* is completely irrelevant. What's important is the goal the rule is trying to achieve - not leaking any product info early.
...but he did. He totally did that thing. And even if it's not serious, it interferes with Apple's most important product — the veneer of capability and competence. When holes are punched in that, Apple suffers, because it's all they've got. They don't have technical superiority, they don't have unique features... all they have is their name, and the value of that is based on things like sphincter control.
From what I read, they're firing him for making a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes, even big ones. The key is to keep employees who learn from their mistakes, so that you don't end up paying the cost of a different employee maing the same mistake again.
Apple does not have any critical employees. Literally anyone at Apple could get hit by a bus tomorrow without impeding the operation of the company. The days when Apple depended on would-be superstars to do anything but give presentations are long over and Apple is now just banging out new iterations by formula, and there are people lined up ten deep to step into every role Apple's got, desperate for a paycheck. Keeping a prototype secret is clearly and obviously very important for Apple; Apple has a long history of taking this issue very seriously. Nobody who has trouble remembering this should need Apple to "do a much better job from here on out in addressing the rules and making sure that everybody is aware of the rules" because anyone with two brain cells to rub together ought to be fully aware of the rules by now.
Re:An unfortunate incident (Score:4, Informative)
Apple does not have any critical employees.
In fairness, no large organization can. Any institution over 70 years old has almost certainly had every "important" employee beyond a certain point die whether from accident, illness or simple old age. Likewise even important employees have other things in their life which even if not death will pull them away from the company at little notice.
This is why large organisations appear inefficient. They have to have redundancy otherwise they'd be in bad trouble. Apple has 116,000 employees (according to google who are never wrong). That means that a one in a million event per employee per day happens once every two weeks or less.
Small organisations don't have this, but they can collapse if a key person leaves. The inefficiency is hidden from view however.
Not defending apple here, just commenting on the general nature of bigger organsiations.
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If only it was that good. You're forgetting the peter principle and its corollaries. Large, not young, organizations are _far_ less efficient than you explanation can account for.
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Oh sure. I mean that that puts an upper limit on their efficiency. Even with magic pixie dust that fixed all the communication problems, Peter principle magnets and etc they'd still need considerable redundancy and appear inefficient.
Re: An unfortunate incident (Score:2)
Re:An unfortunate incident (Score:5, Informative)
It was an accident.
This was no accident. She was filming the whole ordeal with a fat DSLR on the Apple Campus with her father and lots of other Apple people around. The video is also heavily edited, underlined with music and all that other typical Youtube vlogger stuff. This was not a case of "woops, two seconds of iPhone X footage slipped into a snapchat", this was a vlogger very deliberately showing of the shiny new phone and everybody being aware of her doing it. I am surprised that Apple even let her carry that DSLR around there in the first place.
Accidentally breaking an NDA can happen, but this is as far away from an accident as you can get.
Re:An unfortunate incident (Score:5, Interesting)
and everybody being aware of her doing it.
Being aware and giving a shit are two different things. It's amazing to see how far you can get with quite obviously breaking rules without someone stopping to speak up to you.
It's amazing how much you get away with if you show the confidence of someone who is supposed to do what they have. I remember at once chemical plant I worked at I occasionally have to take pictures. If I'm using my phone I get stopped every 5 minutes by someone asking to see my photography permit. When I brought in my DSLR and a tripod, not a single person questioned me.
Similarly walking through one company's plant without hearing protection on, I got pulled up straight away (even though it was a quiet area). Same company different site which I wasn't familiar with I walked into the plant protected area after turning down the wrong street. I was in suit and tie, people everywhere. No one dared to question the "important looking" person.
An obvious breach of the rule often look so deliberate that they may not be breaches of the rules.
Re:An unfortunate incident (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a skill everybody should get down while still young enough to be charged as a minor.
'Walk like you own the joint!'
Practice in intimidating places. Take trophies like the (police chief's/bishop's/judge's/principal's) desk nameplate. Sure, there are cameras everywhere now. Jr high school is the age to do your chutzpah practicals.
You will learn the importance of costume.
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This is an example of bad things happening to good people.
Apple are shit, the engineer is a lame for ignoring the wishes of his employer (which hey, is his job) and his daughter is a spoiled brat for putting her never-going-to-go-anywhere social media reputation over her father's employment. Point at the good people.
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Sorry, but I really blame "Daddy" for getting himself fired here. He should have known that the second he handed that iPhone X employee prototype over to his kid (Who was filming it ON Apple property nonetheless!), he just made a huge NDA violation that could get him fired. A simple "Yo, dummy, stop filming this!" would have probably been enough to stop him from getting in serious trouble, or even a "Don't be an idiot and post this on YouTube".
We all know how paranoid Apple is when it comes to secrecy, and
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He probably assumed that since it had already been announced (I assume), and members of the press had already gotten to play with them in person, there was nothing still secret. The question I have is this: did the video actually contain any meaningful secrets? If not (and nothing in the articles implies that it did), then while Apple might technically be within their rights to do what they did, I seriously question the wisdom of doing so. After all, employees learn from mistakes, so he almost certainly
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Why not? The product has been announced, which means that it is no longer secret. Journalists have used it, written about it, published videos of them using it, etc. Sensible people would assume that letting their kids do the same thing is okay, so long as the build of the OS on that device doesn't have any features that haven't been publicly annou
Responsibility Accepted (Score:2)
her father "takes full reponsibility for letting me film his iPhone X."
Responsibility Accepted Captain Needa. The level of response from Apple seems about right to me. You can be sure the people with pre-release hardware have the potential consequences of leaks explained to them very clearly. And not for no reason: this leak probably cost Apple way more money than they would have paid this employee even had he worked for them his whole life.
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Re:Responsibility Accepted (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should it _cost_ them money? It's free press, and creates a buzz for the product, leading to increased sales, leading to more profit.
Apple spends orders of magnitude more than this guy's [former] salary on advertising, and a big portion of that is controlling the timing of the release of information. When this one engineer allowed his daughter to take pictures of this one device, it will have resulted in actual work (which costs actual money) for other employees. It may have affected media spend, where lots of zeroes on the ends of numbers are commonplace. When the left hand and the right hand don't cooperate, it becomes difficult to pull off a magic trick, and magic is Apple's differentiating factor. At the end of the day, the competitors' devices accomplish all the same tasks, so Apple isn't competing on the basis of competence. They're competing on the basis of image, and part of that is keeping wraps on their prototypes so that they can maintain secrecy, so that they can in turn control the message.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sucks for him that he didn't take the NDAs seriously, but Apple did the right thing in showing him the door.
Apple are the richest bunch of fuckers in history. They don't need to earn millions. They should be giving away the iPhone for free. The fact that they aren't is a damning indictment of capitalism.
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You don't think assholes can be insightful?
Prince.
Sheesh .. it's amazing what goes for critical thinking around here.
1. The OP made a statement about Apple enforcing its NDAs. Like them or hate them, if they are legal and you don't comply with them, well sucks to be you.
2. The 1st AC called the OP a fucking asshole. That was not an insightful comment, that was an Ad Hom pure and simple because there was no argument as to why the AC disliked/disagreed with the actual contents of the OPs spot.
3. The 2nd AC points out this same line of reasoning.
3. Thus in
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I refuse to even sign NDAs, and even I would have fired the guy.
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China is bootlegging obsolete network protocols?
We should sabotage them, send N Korea a Netbeui.
Why is his daughter still posting? (Score:5, Insightful)
Watched the video expecting it to be a 12-year-old, but no, it's a grown woman. How on earth could she not have known that she'd get into trouble for posting this before release? Did she think she was entitled to a world exclusive hands-on preview of the device because her dad is an Apple engineer?
Simply put, it's the father's fault for letting his daughter handle an employee device. Letting family use a top-secret company prototype is reasons enough for dismissal, but the family member then posting videos to YouTube of this *unreleased* product really takes the biscuit.
Apple have done some terrible things (e.g. getting the police to raid Gizmodo after they legally acquired a pre-release iPhone) but I see no issue with this firing. The fact that the daughter posted a follow-up video really says it all. Let me guess, she wants to be a social media star?
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It almost makes me wonder if the whole fuss was manufactured for publicity....
Nahhh, Apple wouldn't do that.
Never.
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Even better, the apology clearly tells viewers that the moral of the story is to obey rules.
Think Affluent
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Let me guess, she wants to be a social media star?
Well, now she has to become a social media star. There is no going back.
Her dad's unemployment is certainly not going to cover the rent in Silicon Valley.
It will cover food and a few expenses, but that's about it.
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How on earth could she not have known that she'd get into trouble for posting this before release? Did she think she was entitled to a world exclusive hands-on preview of the device because her dad is an Apple engineer?
Did she read, sign the NDA, go through training, know in detailed the device was secret and not to be published?
You're criticising someone who doesn't know something when they also can't know something. Unless her dad specifically told her anything where was she supposed to get this information from? "Oooh dad gave me his phone to play with, I better second guess him and go ask Apple's legal department!"
The buck stops with the last person required to be in the know. The family member is fully vindicated by
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Apple have done some terrible things (e.g. getting the police to raid Gizmodo after they legally acquired a pre-release iPhone)
Acquiring stolen property is never legal - unless, by chance, you are the original owner. Just because Gizmodo paid for it does not make it legal.
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The fact that the daughter posted a follow-up video really says it all. Let me guess, she wants to be a social media star?
You needed a follow-up video to get to that conclusion?
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What a difference 20 years makes (Score:2)
Apple 1997: "Think different"
Apple 2017: "just not overlook rules when you're in the workplace or when you're in school or when you're at home"
Takes full responsibility? (Score:2, Insightful)
In a new follow-up video, the former Apple engineer's daughter says "I had no idea this was a violation," adding that her father "takes full reponsibility for letting me film his iPhone X."
In that case, why are we even seeing this non-story at all? If he takes full responsibility, then clearly he expected to be fired for being careless with Apple's prototype, and there is literally nothing to report here. We are only hearing about it because he is irresponsible!
News for nerds (Score:3, Insightful)
Guy is stupid
Guy gets fired.
Just because somehow a new gadget is involved, doesn't make in news, only for the yellow press perhaps.
wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
"Apple really did like my dad."
Apple is a company. A company cannot like or dislike something. Any emotions you ascribe to a company are actually the emotions of whoever is in charge. You change the leader and the emotions of the company can reverse in a minute.
People often make this mistake of "trusting a company" or "believing in a company". You can trust the current leaders, but you can't trust a company. A company is not a person, it's a legal construct. Personifying companies too much only results in disappointment.
The "look at me" generation (Score:5, Interesting)
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People used to only earn recognition by either achieving something through hard work
Not sure if you don't understand history or you don't understand people, but since the dawn of the human race people have earned fame, recognition and importance through blind luck, critical social connections, or inheritance / ancestry. People who achieved this through hard work are incredibly rare.
but today's generation is all about looking for ways to be noticed any way they can. ... People used to only earn recognition by either achieving something through hard work.
I know you didn't intentionally contradict yourself but you managed to congratulate her for her efforts. She's putting work and effort into a follow up video to promote the windfall she got. Maybe be less angry
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ie a lifetime of work
I'm downgrading my original comment. People achieving something through hard work is incredibly rare. People achieving something through a lifetime of effort are non-existent.
Even among the people who achieved something through "hard work" their achievements boil down to a handful of specific moments that suddenly elevate them to a point where they can capitalise on other achievements, and making that moment in an hour recording a video is far more effort than most successes actually get.
You're trivialising
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She's apparently a 20 something 12 year old. That was the GPs point, there are lots of them. They are the best reason to avoid facebook but love it at the same time. Just like AOL of old, it serves a good purpose.
It remains no excuse for her dad. Unless she filmed it with a pen camera.
How old is she? (Score:3)
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It changes the dynamic of the story reading this depending on how old I imagine the daughter to be.
She's a grown up if you watch the video, but really the more important question is: why? How does the dynamic of the story change? The age, gender, or relationships have no bearing on the case in question which is generalised to: Person who signed NDA gives thing under NDA to person who has not signed NDA in breach of the NDA, and person who has not signed NDA posted it on the internet likely due to not being told about the NDA.
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I still don't see it at all relevant. Breaking an NDA doesn't make it better because it's a kid vs an adult trying to get Youtube hits (in this case the latter).
Focusing on this is missing the issue. Missing the issue is what causes people to direct anger in the wrong place and Slashdot is full these posts right now: damn kids, damn people promoting their site, damn Apple instead of the only single issue that matters: damn idiot who has just been punished for breaching an NDA.
iPhones are like hot dogs (Score:2)
Is she reading from a script? (Score:2)
They had to do what they had to do. I'm not mad at Apple. I'm not going to stop buying Apple products. Rules are in place for the happiness and for the safety of workers
That's just a little creepy.
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They had to do what they had to do. I'm not mad at Apple. I'm not going to stop buying Apple products. Rules are in place for the happiness and for the safety of workers
That's just a little creepy.
And she's wrong. Most rules, and especially these rules, are in place for the profitability and security of the company. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but she needs to learn this lesson sooner rather than later.
Here is the full video (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
"Shopping solves all my problems"
P R Scat (Score:2)
A drone gets her wings. (Score:2)
And they let him go. Because -- because he broke a rule. So my advice to people out there is to just not overlook rules when you're in the workplace or when you're in school or when you're at home."
And another complacent worker bee is born.
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SE is very good. The ginormous ones don't interest me..
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That's why I was suggesting docking his pay. Surely there is some middle ground between a warning and a firing? He doesn't get off scot-free, and Apple doesn't have to go through the large expense of replacing him.
What's with management at so many companies acting like mindless, soulless bureaucrats? Rules is rules. no exceptions! Might as well replace them all with AIs, since they seem to lack discretion and a human touch.
Re:lose-lose situation (Score:5, Insightful)
its one of those sad moments where everybody lose for no good reason.
You don't seem to understand that Apple sells hype. This engineer interfered with Apple's cloak of mystery, which is one of the biggest ways they enhance their perception of value. Without smoke and mirrors, Apple is just another manufacturer of trinkets from whom the magic escaped long, long ago. Apple literally does not give one tenth of one shit whether they have the best RF engineer. Remember "holding it wrong"? That guy is an interchangeable robot to Apple. Secrecy, on the other hand, is valuable. You can't put the smoke back into the capacitor.
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Irrelevant.
Announced, yes. Released? No.