Apple Sues YouTuber Jon Prosser Over iOS 26 Leaks

Apple has filed a lawsuit against YouTuber Jon Prosser and Michael Ramacciotti for misappropriation of trade secrets related to iOS 26 leaks published earlier this year. The complaint alleges Prosser and Ramacciotti conspired to access a development iPhone belonging to Apple employee Ethan Lipnik, acquiring his passcode and using location-tracking to determine when he "would be gone for an extended period."

Apple claims Ramacciotti accessed Lipnik's device and made a FaceTime call to Prosser showing iOS 26 features, which Prosser recorded and used to create rendered mockups for his January, March, and April videos. Lipnik's employment was terminated, and Apple seeks an injunction against further disclosure plus damages.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

If I wanted new iOS features, I'd just get an Android 12 months before the new iPhone is released.

Re: why does anyone care

[drinkypoo]

He's wrong though because usually half of the "new" features in iOS are things Android has had for years, not just a year. How long have users been asking for a keyboard layout that isn't shit, like with numbers when you're entering a password?

Fuck your apple stock, moderator

[drinkypoo]

See subject

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[registrations_suck]

I don't need ANY "emojis".

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[snowshovelboy]

The screen size changing from 6.1 to 6.2 is proprietary information.

Another staged "leak"?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

This marketing technique is seriously long in the tooth...

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[Anonymous Coward]

Guess they won't sue Samsung etc for leaking their features years earlier.

Do Apple phone cameras do AI "enhanced" moon photos yet? ;)

Re:Another staged "leak"?

[geekmux]

This marketing technique is seriously long in the tooth...

Ask the guy who was fired if that was “staged” too.

I believe California employment laws are no pushover. If a wrongful termination turd is something Apple feels like it can polish up and shine for shits and profits sake, I’d question if they’re taking marketing advice from Bud Light.

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[phantomfive]

I believe California employment laws are no pushover

They are weak. Basically, you can fire someone for any reason (or no reason), except for specifically protected classes (such as race, gender, whistleblowing). Firing someone because you think it will bring publicity? No problem! Welcome to California.

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[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I believe California employment laws are no pushover.

I can tell you from personal experience that this is entirely correct. My last job was working for a Fortune 500 company with offices scattered all over the USA and in some foreign countries. A severance agreement that still has a bit to run prevents me from saying who they are. We had an office in a Los Angeles suburb. Special rules applied to those employees that didn't apply anywhere else in the company. For example, they were the only US employees allowed to carry over over more than 5 vacatio

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[UnknowingFool]

I believe California employment laws are no pushover.

And which California employment law do you believe was violated?

If a wrongful termination turd is something Apple feels like it can polish up and shine for shits and profits sake, I’d question if they’re taking marketing advice from Bud Light.

Let's suppose the Apple employee was not part of the plan to disclose these features. The question is how his credentials were obtained. If they were obtained because he was careless, then that would be enough justification. I have known people who made one mistake and got fired; they were otherwise good employees but some companies are unforgiving.

Re:Another staged "leak"?

[thegarbz]

Cynical much? Staged leaks don't normally result in someone getting fired and a legal proceeding afterwards.

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[Rinnon]

I think it's more than just an issue of cynicism of skepticism. There is so much conspiracy theorizing on the internet that it has become the most normal thing in the world to assume that rather than a simple explanation of the event (occam's razor), the more convoluted and clandestine the explanation is, the better. Conspiracy seems to be the default explanation for most things now. Honestly, it's pretty terrible.

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[thegarbz]

The problem is that people have failed basic occam's razor in every thought they have. Many Slashdot regulators are fully beyond this state. ... and quite poetically I'm listening to Start Wearing Purple right now and the lyrics just came in "all your sanity and wits they will all vanish" I think may people are beyond insane at this point.

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[fluffernutter]

The saddest part is that people are so hypnotised by corporations that there is a big market for this kind of nes.

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[mjwx]

This marketing technique is seriously long in the tooth...

And it didn't get the press that Apple wanted it to, so they're now "suing" the leaker to try and make people care.

Apple became passe some years ago and now all but the most zealous Apple fanboys have noticed and stopped caring.

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[ChunderDownunder]

Releases 19 to 25 were so uninteresting that Apple skipped them entirely!

The good news is that we only have seven decades until iOS 95.

IOS updates and youtube

[gary s]

SO Another apple phone, same size, same features, new OS version name. Maybe adding 1 more feature android has had for 10 years. Yep, guy should go to prison for that.

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[caseih]

Prison for a civil suit? I don't think so. Leaving him financially destroyed, on the other hand, is definitely what Apple is aiming for.

Anyone curious as to how?

[buck-yar]

, acquiring his passcode and then using location-tracking to determine when he "would be gone for an extended period."

Did they say how? For stealing the pin code, someone could just watch or record it. But how does someone use location tracking to determine if someone is going to be gone for a while? How does someone get access to his location data?

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[bill_mcgonigle]

> How does someone get access to his location data?

  You pay $50 to a data broker, AIUI.

Half of the convenience apps you download include tracking libraries. Free apps often make their money by selling your location data to surveillance companies.

Ads are included so you don't think to ask what their revenue stream is.

Stock ROM's don't prevent most of this.

Sounds about right

[devslash0]

Sounds criminal to me.

Stalking, unauthorized access, IP theft.

People have spent decades in prison for less.

Re:

[caseih]

Apple has launched a civil lawsuit. If it was criminal, federal prosecutors would be the ones executing the case, which they would do if there really was a case for it. So no, not criminal.

Illegal phone use?

[MooseTick]

So they "borrowed" someone's unattended phone and used it for a while and noticed some nifty features and shared that via YouTube. And the sharer had no NDA or other agreement with Apple.

Can Apple sue me if I were to "create rendered mockups" of my current iPhone system? Also, I wonder if they will claim he had an agreement with Apple due to having used and agreed to their TOS previously. That tactic didn't work well (publicly) for Disney, but I don't see it going away.

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/14... [npr.org]

 

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

The merits aren't the point - bankrupting the little guy and sending a message to the other little guys is the point.

"The process is the punishment."