Joe Rossignol, reporting for MacRumors:

Apple this month sued its former employee Andrew Aude in California state court, alleging that he breached the company’s confidentiality agreement and violated labor laws by leaking sensitive information to the media and employees at other tech companies. Apple has demanded a jury trial, and it is seeking damages in excess of $25,000…

In April 2023, for example, Apple alleges that Aude leaked a list of finalized features for the iPhone’s Journal app to a journalist at The Wall Street Journal on a phone call. That same month, The Wall Street Journal’s Aaron Tilley published a report titled “Apple Plans iPhone Journaling App in Expansion of Health Initiatives.”

Using the encrypted messaging app Signal, Aude is said to have sent “over 1,400” messages to the same journalist, who Aude referred to as “Homeboy.” He is also accused of sending “over 10,000 text messages” to another journalist at the website The Information, and he allegedly traveled “across the continent” to meet with her.

The fact that this former Apple employee had the journalist saved as “Homeboy” in his contacts is cringeworthy. And the fact that Aude travelled across the continent to meet with this Information reporter makes me think there was (is?) something personal between the two. Seriously, 10,000 text messages seems peculiar — perhaps that’s worth looking into in regards to journalistic integrity.

Apple believes that Aude’s actions were “extensive and purposeful,” with Aude allegedly admitting that he leaked information so he could “kill” products and features with which he took issue. The company alleges that his wrongful disclosures resulted in at least five news articles discussing the company’s confidential and proprietary information. Apple says these public revelations impeded its ability to “surprise and delight” with its latest products.

This is ridiculous. Apple alleges Aude leaked the information to The Wall Street Journal and The Information so that he could “kill products and features with which he took issue.” It’s almost unbelievable — first that Aude is so stupid that he thought the public catching wind of unreleased features would end up killing them somehow, and second that he thinks leaking information is a more appropriate way to address his concerns than speaking to his superiors within the company. I’m very curious as to how Aude landed a job at Apple with this level of idiocy.

In a November 2023 interview, Apple alleges that Aude denied leaking confidential information to anyone. However, during that interview, Apple alleges that Aude went to the bathroom and deleted “significant amounts of evidence” from his work iPhone, including the Signal app that he used to communicate with “Homeboy.”

This is easily one of the most hilarious labor disputes of all time. Once Aude was caught red-handed, he didn’t — I don’t know — admit to the act, deny wrongdoing, or find some other way to rescue himself. He, like a 7-year-old child caught with their hands in the cookie jar, went to the bathroom and deleted the chats from Signal that he had on his work phone in a hurry. I truly have not encountered an Apple employee who was this stupid before; why would any moderately intelligent person leak information to the press on a corporate-monitored work phone? And if someone were to do that, why would they save the chats or applications they used to leak information?

This whole situation is beyond parody. What a total moron — and good on Apple for catching on and suing.