2024.0408

Number of words in this article:1077, reading time is about 2 minutes

introduction：苹果突然曝出重大泄密事件。

** Source| ** Broker China Beijing Business Daily Daily Economic News

According to newly released documents from the Superior Court of Santa Clara County, California, Apple recently sued a former employee named Andrew Aude, accusing him of leaking sensitive information to media and other technology companies, violating company confidentiality agreements and labor laws. Apple seeks more than $25,000 in damages.

In 2016, Aude joined Apple as an iOS software engineer shortly after graduating from college. The complaint alleges that because Aude is responsible for optimizing battery performance, this gives him "access to information about dozens of Apple's most sensitive projects". The confidential information leaked by Aude within five years included at least six Apple products, including the Vision Pro, Apple's product development policy, regulatory compliance strategy, and changes in the number of employees in major departments, the complaint said. According to Apple, Aude used the company's work iPhone to send more than 1400 messages to Homeboy, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, through the encrypted messaging app "Signal", and sent as many as 10000 text messages to another reporter from Silicon Valley tech media "The Infomation" to meet. Because Aude often takes screenshots on the working iPhone to keep records of its communications with journalists, this allows Apple to retrieve the content. Apple said it only learned of Aude's leak at the end of 2023 and fired him in December of the same year on suspicion of misconduct. The company also wrote that Aude admitted to violating the employee's obligations in a leak, but explained that he wanted to "terminate the products and features he opposed" in this way. Apple said Aude posed a "constant threat" to the company and that "his disclosure hindered Apple's ability to surprise and delight its new products." In court documents, Apple filed a claim for damages and demanded the forfeiture of bonuses and shares in Aude. It is worth mentioning that Apple's leak does not seem to be over after the arrest of Aude, the "mole". After giving up building cars, Apple seems to have shifted its focus. Mark Goolman, a well-known Apple whistleblower, wrote on April 3 that Apple's teams are working on promoting home robotics, an area that has the potential to become one of Apple's changing "next big thing." It is reported that Apple engineers are developing a mobile robot that can follow users around the home. In addition, Apple has developed an advanced desktop home device that uses robots to move the display around. Although the project is still in its early stage and there is no accurate news of whether it can be landed, some industry analysts say that with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, robots have become a landing-capable AI application, and many requirements have been verified, and there is even a view that humanoid robots may be the ultimate form of AI. As a technology company, it makes sense for Apple to choose a home robot that is closely integrated with AI as its new track. It has been 17 years since the birth of the epoch-making smartphone product iPhone, and since the era of Jobs, Apple has not stopped looking for the next outlet besides mobile phones and computers. Under the "internal and external troubles", looking for "next big thing" is no longer a choice for Apple, but an urgent need. **