Saturday, April 14, 2018

Apple Warns Employees to Stop Leaking Information

Mark Gurman (Hacker News, MacRumors):

The Cupertino, California-based company said in a lengthy memo posted to its internal blog that it “caught 29 leakers,” last year and noted that 12 of those were arrested. “These people not only lose their jobs, they can face extreme difficulty finding employment elsewhere,” Apple added. The company declined to comment on Friday.

Apple outlined situations in which information was leaked to the media, including a meeting earlier this year where Apple’s software engineering head Craig Federighi told employees that some planned iPhone software features would be delayed. Apple also cited a yet-to-be-released software package that revealed details about the unreleased iPhone X and new Apple Watch.

John Gruber:

Getting fired for leaking — we all knew that happened. But this is the first I’ve heard of leakers being prosecuted criminally and going to jail.

Previously: How Apple Plans to Root Out Bugs.

Update (2018-04-15): Amir Efrati (via Anil Dash):

And this notion that people who discuss company products will be arrested is preposterous. The arrests that Apple references, I’m willing to bet, are entirely related to the supply chain and theft of prototypes. Apple is lumping the two groups of people together for effect.

Update (2018-04-29): See also: The Menu Bar.

Update (2018-05-01): Joe Rossignol:

Ming-Chi Kuo, widely considered to be one of the best analysts covering Apple, might no longer focus his research on the iPhone maker.

China Times reports that Kuo resigned from Taiwanese research firm KGI Securities on Friday and, while his next move is uncertain, the publication suggests he will focus less on Apple and more on other emerging industries.

Kuo has been one of the most prolific sources of rumors about Apple’s unreleased products and services since as early as 2010, when he was a senior analyst at industry publication DigiTimes. He briefly covered Apple for Concord Securities in 2011, before moving to KGI Securities in early 2012.

2 Comments RSS · Twitter

I wish they could leak the date the real GM of macOS High Sierra will be shipped.

It's like ThinkSecret all over again…

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