Apple fires engineer after his daughter’s iPhone X video goes viral

It seems harmless at first, but...

In the video, we can see an email on his phone marked "restricted" with a project code name and some other details. That could potentially be harmful. His daugher is probably not allowed to see that, let alone post it on youtube.

Not to mention, they want to tightly control the message prior to the pre-order sale... they don't want any unfinished software on the device changing people's opinion and affecting pre-orders unnecessarily.

Look, he violated his employer's NDA and it wasn't a mistake. What do you expect?

Much worse violations have happened in the past at Apple, and were unintentional. Like the firmware leak that leaked everything about this year's iPhones. As far as I know, nobody was fired for that, because it was a mistake.

It does matter. I work in an industry where any leaks of a new product can make our share price drop or go up - so an employee being careless about what they share online does actually affect the company a lot. I would absolutely be fired if I leaked what product I am working on and I don't see anything wrong with that, it's not about bowing to authority.

Feels like someone has an agenda, this is the 10th time I've heard this story and it has exactly the same information.

Father told/showed daughter prototype phone in breach of an NDA that I know he signed if he had access to that hardware. Daughter felt really proud of superstar daddy and took to the internet to show off.

Apple has three recourses,

1) Sue the employee to the fullest extent covered under the NDA. My employer can hold me personally liable for any loss of revenue and it wouldn't be hard to claim damage on this.

2) Ignore the incident, set a precedent that leaks are ok. Or internally lambast the employee which is akin to bullying in some eyes.

3) Terminate the employee, allow a clean break and for the employee to persue other jobs with newly accrued information (IE; that when your NDA says "NOBODY (inc. Family) are to be told [...] that it generally means it.

This is a non-story. Yes, it's sad. But it's wholly self-inflicted and I think Apple took the least destructive path on this.

From the article, "I had no idea this was a violation"

Welp, if you weren't getting fired for showing off the iPhone X before it ships without permission you should be fired for being at Apple for four years and not realizing this might be a problem.

I can't even take this as genuine. I seriously wonder if they were already half out the door for other reasons.