Former iOS software engineer Andrew Ode is accused of leaking information about more than a dozen Apple policies and products — including the Journal app and Vision Pro headset.
«Mr. Ode often took and saved screenshots of his messages on his work iPhone to preserve them for posterity», — the lawsuit cited says 9to5mac.
It is reported that Ode also allegedly sent «a thousand messages» to journalists from The Information and The Wall Street Journal.
«According to data from his Apple-issued work iPhone, Mr. Ode had more than 1,400 encrypted communications with just one WSJ journalist over a four-month period,» Apple’s lawsuit says. «He also sent more than 10,000 text messages to the journalist from The Information using his work iPhone and traveled across the continent to meet with her».
The complaint cites several examples of cooperation:
In or around April 2023, Mr. Ode read over the phone to a WSJ journalist (aka «Homeboy») an email with the final feature list for an unannounced Apple program. He did so despite the fact that the email was explicitly marked as «confidential» and Apple «only had one chance» to make a «first impression».
This example and the above screenshot showing the timing details clearly refer to a report by Aaron Tilley of The Wall Street Journal. The article was the first to reveal details about the Journal app and was published in April 2023.
In another example, a screenshot of Oda’s work iPhone taken in October 2020 shows that he disclosed Apple’s product development in the «spatial computing» field (likely regarding the upcoming Vision Pro) to an outsider not employed by the company.