Apple never compromises on the secrecy of its yet-to-launch products. An excited Apple engineer who handed his pre-production iPhone X unit to his teenage daughter has been fired. We come across tons of supply chain leaks in the run-up to new iDevice launches. But when you let your daughter make an iPhone X video and Apple can easily track you down, you are going to have a hard time.
The iPhone X video broke Apple’s secrecy rule
The Cupertino company uses code-names to describe its projects, and has a dedicated investigation team to track down where the leaks come from. Now you know how the tech giant got so good at keeping secrets. Teenager Brooke Amelia Peterson is a YouTuber. She said in her latest video, “At the end of the day, when you work for Apple, it doesn’t matter how good of a person you are. If you break a rule, they just have no tolerance. They had to do what they had to do.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQzGKwjr_js
Last week, like most teenage YouTubers Brooke Amelia Peterson posted a video that included shopping for a large part. The same video shows Peterson visiting her father Ken Bauer on Apple’s Cupertino campus for dinner. According to Peterson, her father worked on the Apple Pay and radio communications features of the iPhone X. While having dinner in Apple’s cafeteria, Bauer hands Peterson what is believed to be his pre-production iPhone X.
In the iPhone X video that has since been taken down, Peterson can be seen scrolling through the phone’s calendar app, and exploring other features such as the Face ID, animoji, and camera. The video clearly showed off the phone’s camera capabilities and its beautiful design. Her father enthusiastically participated by using Apple Pay, probably to show his daughter the feature he had worked on. Bauer might not have realized that he was violating Apple’s strict secrecy policy.
Peterson’s iPhone X video went viral. It was picked up by many media outlets such as 9to5Mac, Apple Insider, and others. 9to5Mac described the footage as “our best look yet at the device in action.” Though Apple had already announced the product in September in an event that was live-streamed and YouTube was flooded with iPhone X videos, Peterson’s video gave us a rare look at Apple’s most exciting product that was yet to hit the store shelves.
With its decision to fire Peterson’s father, Apple has sent a chilling reminder to every employee that it does not tolerate leaks. In her latest video, Peterson said Apple asked her to take down the video, which she did. After that, the company fired Ken Bauer. She added that it was her mistake and not her father’s, and now her dad is paying for her mistake.
Peterson said she had recorded the video just for fun. Neither she nor her father had any other intentions. She added that her father “takes full responsibility for the one rule that he broke. We’re not angry, we’re not bitter.” On a side note, she said that she would not stop buying Apple products. Good news for Apple!
iPhone X demand ‘off the charts’
Apple began taking pre-orders for the iPhone X on October 27. The pre-orders ran out of stock within minutes. The delivery estimates were pushed back to December. A company spokesperson told Reuters that the iPhone X pre-orders were “off the charts.” Apple stock, which had been declining consistently following the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus launch, rallied more than 3% on Oct.27. The Cupertino company said it was “working hard” to get as many iPhone X units in the hands of customers as it can.
Apple is struggling to produce enough units of the iPhone X to meet consumer demand. Nikkei Asian Review recently reported that the company would be able to ship only 20 million iPhone X units due to technical issues with the 3D infrared sensors that support Face ID and animoji features. If true, it is less than 50% of the estimated holiday quarter demand of nearly 50 million units. It means most of the pre-orders won’t be delivered until early 2018.
Despite supply shortages, the iPhone maker is trying to improve the iPhone X delivery dates for the iPhone Upgrade Program customers who had suffered from financial issues during the pre-order process, reports Apple Insider. Many of the iPhone Upgrade Program members had experienced issues with loan processing via Citizens One while placing their orders.
The affected customers had to re-order the iPhone X, but by then the ship-by times had been pushed back to December. In many cases, the iPhone X delivery dates have now been upgraded to November. For some customers, Apple has even reverted to their initial promised dates.
At $999 starting price, the iPhone X is expensive. Plus, you’ll have to protect your shiny all-glass iPhone with AppleCare+, which will set you back by another couple of hundred bucks. If you don’t take the AppleCare+ protection, the company says repairing a broken iPhone X display would cost you $279. For other damages, you’ll have to shell out $549.
