Apple is suing its former employee Andrew Aude for leaking confidential company information to newspapers. The software engineer divulged project details to reporters from the Wall Street Journal and The Information. Among the information leaked by the former employee were details of the Apple Vision Pro VR headset.
The big tech discovered in November 2023 that Aude was sharing confidential content with journalists. The former employee used his own iPhone, provided by Apple, to contact reporters. He only confessed that he was the source of these vehicles in December.
In a situation worthy of a comedy movie, the company reports that Aude, during the November meeting, said he was without his smartphone at the moment. Then he said he needed to go to the bathroom and deleted conversations with journalists — he used Signal for those contacts. However, Apple was able to recover the history of the chats.
Andrew Aude was a software engineer at the company and worked on battery performance optimization. This area of expertise gave Aude access to Apple’s most sensitive information, such as SoC development and new products. Among this “early access” was the creation of the Apple Vision Pro, the company’s VR headset.
In the lawsuit, Apple accuses Aude of having revealed in October 2020 details about the development of a “spatial computing” product — the name Apple uses to refer to the segment served by the Vision Pro, which is nothing more than a “fancy” name for VR.
Aude was the source who revealed to the Wall Street Journal that Apple was developing the Diary app. The information was published in April 2023, months before big tech discovered that he was responsible for the leaks. The former employee had been with the company since 2016 and received several promotions during his years at Apple.
According to court documents, Aude stated that he leaked the information to end products and features he disagreed with. In the lawsuit, Apple seeks damages for damages, bonus refunds and shares. In addition, the big tech wants a court order that prohibits Aude from disclosing confidential information without the company’s consent.