
Apple fires iPhone X engineer after daughter’s hands-on video goes viral - minimaxir
https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/28/16565110/apple-engineer-iphone-x-youtube-video
======
justboxing
> In a tearful video, Peterson explains her father violated an Apple company
> rule by allowing her to film the unreleased handset at Apple’s campus.

The key word here is "unreleased".

Even if she released the video after the keynote, it was filmed in Apple's
Labs / Offices a _month before_ , when the new iphone was in an unreleased
state. Pretty sure their NDA forbids such things for obvious reasons. Design
leaks (from videos) could potential cost companies like Apple MILLIONS in lost
revenue.

NDAs are there for a reason. I see nothing wrong with what Apple did here.

~~~
fullshark
I imagine most people here agree, but feel some sympathy for the engineer who
wasn't malicious, just careless.

~~~
justboxing
Agreed, but with that level of access, one cannot afford to be careless. And
Apple could care less whether it was malicious, or careless or plain stupid.

The intent doesn't change the consequences for Apple.

~~~
fullshark
True. Also I feel kind of bad for the kid which adds another semitragic
element.

~~~
kelnos
I don't feel bad for anyone, here. The father was flat-out stupid: there's no
excuse for him not knowing Apple's policies around this sort of thing. The
daughter should know better than to even take a video of an unreleased Apple
product while in the office, let alone release it. These people are just
incredibly foolish, and firing the guy is entirely justified. They're lucky
Apple isn't suing the daughter for what I can only assume is a breach of the
NDA she presumably signed before being let into the office.

I personally would not work for a company that has such high requirements for
strict secrecy that Apple does, but this guy did, and assuredly knew that
going in.

~~~
flor1s
Suing the daughter? I think many people will not think bad for the engineer
getting fired, but I doubt suing the daughter would be worth the damage in
reputation such a lawsuit would cost.

~~~
kelnos
Oh agreed; just pointing out that Apple likely could do that, and would even
probably legitimately win such a suit.

------
sudhirj
I work in film distribution, and we have similar rules as well for unreleased
movies. The important thing is that this is really nothing personal - for all
intents and purposes the firing is a clear and automatic decision by a HR
robot. The question is, who on the iPhone team should have stood up and
advocated having him stay? Presumably all the other people on the team have
families as well, and they all went to great lengths to make sure this didn’t
happen with their pieces. If this happened to someone on my team I would wish
them well and make introductions as much as possible, but it would be very
unfair to the rest of the team to try to hold on to them.

------
throwawaysml
When I visited the R&D center of a German car manufacturer, we were checked at
reception and needed special permission to carry the devices we had with us
for the presentation we were there for. If the software lead (the host) hadn't
cleared the way and taken responsibility, we would have needed to leave
everything at reception like most visitors. We were only allowed to take in
one laptop.

The surprise here is that the daughter was allowed to take her device into the
development office. I suppose the father did the same as our host years ago by
signing off and taking on liability for anything that might happen. In that
sense, and I don't want to sound harsh, he unfortunately had a momentarily
lapse of judgement and kinda failed his father and employee duties. Hard to
balance them at the same time, but maybe certain Apple employees need to
operate like, you know, Air Force R&D personnel. You go to work, but you never
bring home or talk about work.

~~~
djrogers
She was in the cafeteria - it's not a high security environment.

~~~
phxrsg
It is still past the badge perimeter and thus requires an employee-sponsored
guest pass and guest NDA.

source: have visited the same cafe with friends working at apple

------
kasperni
A first I thought the daughter had just secretly filmed the phone. But then I
saw the full video with her dad running around on a campus and even paying for
lunch with the iPhone X
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBeD8E2xxck&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBeD8E2xxck&feature=youtu.be&t=2m20s)

Having worked for Apple for 4 years this is just plain stupidity from the
fathers side, allowing his daughter to film.

~~~
coleca
I thought the same and then saw her reflection in one of the shots from the
selfie camera and she was filming with a big DSLR with an external mic
attached to it. Surprised no one questioned that..

------
skc
I saw this video on r/apple a few days ago and the general consensus there was
that the father would be fired eventually.

It's harsh but if you work at Apple you should know they take a no nonsense
approach to pre-launch secrecy.

------
amingilani
To clarify, while the video was shot a month ago, it wasn't edited and
published until after the keynote, and after several other YouTubers had
published hands on reviews of the device.

~~~
MBCook
The differences is those members of the press were explicitly given access and
permission by Apple to do those reviews.

This person clearly hadn’t been given permission.

I don’t see how he couldn’t know this would happen, I wonder why he did it.

------
osrec
Not defending the employee, who has clearly made a mistake, but to fire
someone who may potentially be productive for a mistake they didn't directly
make is a bit harsh. I would never fire someone for a faux pas - that's the
sort of action that makes all your employees fearful, anxious and eventually,
unproductive.

~~~
clintonb
He wasn’t fired because the video ended up online. He was fired because he let
her film the video. That was a direct action. As an outsider, I agree that
this level of secrecy seems over the top. However, that is what the employees
accept when they join, so it’s their obligation to hold up their end of the
bargain.

~~~
osrec
I get that, but in that case you could lay the blame with apple's security
policy. Why did they allow a non employee in with a smartphone and tempt
fate?!

~~~
dpark
> _allow a non employee in with a smartphone_

I don't think Apple engaging in TSA-type security and patting down everyone to
make sure they aren't carrying a cell phone is a good alternative.

And if you're going to say that they wouldn't _enforce_ the ban, just have a
policy, then I'll ask why that policy would work when the existing one didn't.

------
coldtea
Besides inhuman, how stupid must an executive be to do such a thing? -- the
firing I mean.

Even if it's "justified" by 2000 NDAs, no way this is gonna bring good
publicity and/or karma to a company.

At least it's a teenager -- if it was like a 8-12 year old kid playing with
iPhone X everybody would be very agree at Apple for firing the father.

~~~
aurizon
gone

~~~
fergbrain
Are you serious? She brought her DSLR onto the campus and practically
interviewed her dad. My guess is that he knew 100% what she was doing, thought
that telling her “no” would have caused a bigger issue than “letting it
be”...and was wrong.

~~~
jasonlotito
So, other Apple employees are getting fired too, right? I mean, if filming is
not allowed, how did she get a camera in there in the first place? People
other than her father didn't do their job, clearly, and if a kid can sneak a
digital device into Apple into a location that is apparently intended to be
highly secure, then I'm forced to question their sincerity in how much
emphasis they put on security.

Clearly, it's lacking in serious ways.

~~~
Thiez
> I mean, if filming is not allowed, how did she get a camera in there in the
> first place?

You're not allowed to stab people in the supermarket I frequent, and yet
there's nobody standing at the door frisking all the customers.

> People other than her father didn't do their job, clearly, and if a kid can
> sneak a digital device into Apple into a location that is apparently
> intended to be highly secure, then I'm forced to question their sincerity in
> how much emphasis they put on security.

They probably evaluated the situation and decided that rather than turn their
facility in a well-defended fortress, they would simply make it clear to their
employees what isn't allowed and expect them to do the right thing most of the
time, and accept that sometimes the rules will get broken. That this story
counts as news proves that their approach works very well most of the time.

Besides, these iPhones have cameras, if you can get on campus and get your
hands on two of them, you could easily create a video and upload it, without
ever bringing your own camera.

~~~
jasonlotito
> You're not allowed to stab people in the supermarket I frequent, and yet
> there's nobody standing at the door frisking all the customers.

Because stabbings aren't expected there, but shop lifting is, which is why
they actively work to prevent that via different methods such as mirrors and
cameras.

The same thing applies here.

> they would simply make it clear to their employees what isn't allowed and
> expect them to do the right thing most of the time

Well, clearly this isn't what happened. After all, the filming didn't get him
fired. Rather, it was the posting of the video after review copies had been
sent out. He probably thought it was fine.

So clearly Apple's approach isn't working.

> That this story counts as news proves that their approach works very well
> most of the time.

Let's apply that same standard to something like Equifax.

Sorry, but Apple went overboard here.

~~~
kelnos
> After all, the filming didn't get him fired. Rather, it was the posting of
> the video after review copies had been sent out.

Likely they _did_ fire him for just the act of (allowing) filming, but didn't
know about the video until it was posted.

> He probably thought it was fine.

I sincerely doubt that. Apple employees have it drilled into their heads that
this sort of thing is absolutely not ok, and have signed legal agreements to
that effect.

Hell, a friend of mine who often has very-pre-release versions of iOS on his
phone at times doesn't even allow anyone else to _touch_ his phone, based on
the rules that have been laid out for him by Apple. He doesn't even let other
Apple employees touch his phone unless they're also internally cleared to see
what's in those pre-releases.

> Sorry, but Apple went overboard here.

They went overboard by... enforcing the terms of their employment agreement?
No, they were perfectly justified here.

------
CharlesDodgson
I was confused because I just presumed this was some guerilla marketing by
Apple and a way to virally promote the phone. I just didn't think that the
daughter could get away with filming it otherwise.

~~~
otterley
Apple doesn't do guerilla marketing, though.

~~~
freehunter
That we know of. How many of the "leaks" we see before each iPhone release are
actual leaks and how many are submarine ads? We may never know.

~~~
MBCook
It’s widely thought that a number of things come directly from Apple. Leaks
that point out/say other negative leaks are true often seem to be from Apple.
A sort of unofficial official statement.

It’s also thought that they leak things sometimes so people will have some
time to get used to the information before it’s officially announced. That may
have been the case with the leaks about headphone removal on the iPhone 7
months ahead of the device’s announcement. That way when the time came the
stories were about the headphone removal but also other things. If it hadn’t
already been discussed a lot there’s a decent chance it would’ve ONLY been
about the headphone removal.

But those kinds of leaks tend to be to reporters or bloggers that Apple is
familiar with.

As far as I know they’ve never actually done any “geurrila“ style stuff.

------
LemonGrass52
None of this was surprising and just a matter of time

What I was more surprised about was how much slack people seem to give the
daughter, she’s not 12, she’s graduated from college and married

------
heavymark
When I saw that video I assumed it Apple provided them permission to publish
since of course without there permission that would be an immediate fireable
offense plus any potential damages. Since it sounds like Apple did not provide
permission I have no idea what he was thinking, since I don't blame the girl,
as its his responsibility not to share anything especially when he knows she
is recording it and shares things on her YouTube channel. I feel like there
has to be more to this since since had to know he would be fired. Maybe he
knew he was going to be let go over something else and decided to do this so
he could get fired and gained sympathy. Who knows. Very odd.

------
nickm12
I find Apple's extreme secrecy off-putting. I wouldn't want to work at a place
where there is such limitations about what you can discuss with your
coworkers, let alone your friends and family. But that's how things work at
Apple. It's unbelievable that an Apple employee would let their child have a
hands-on with an unreleased product and film it. If he didn't realize that is
a fireable offense, well, that in itself is a fireable offense.

~~~
user5994461
Not worse than working in the defense or movie industry.

~~~
cm2187
Or financial services.

------
cooper12
Mirrors of the video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBeD8E2xxck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBeD8E2xxck)
and [https://v.redd.it/hal3xc9nwqtz](https://v.redd.it/hal3xc9nwqtz)

------
sus_007
Here's the deleted VLOG which caused this mess :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBeD8E2xxck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBeD8E2xxck)

------
rawland
Mistakes happen. Especially with things one has little control over. Where is
the benevolence and greatness we are striving for and searching in leaders?

There are many ways to solve this with everybody saving face from my point of
view.

~~~
djrogers
> Especially with things one has little control over.

He chose to pull out a pre-relase phone (that he was under strict orders to
keep secret) in front of his vlogging daughter's DSLR camera while she was
filming. Nothing in that scenario was out of his control.

------
jasonlotito
What the headline should be: Apple fires iPhone X engineer after daughter
exposes easy to breach holes in Apple security.

------
Keyframe
That company is incredibly stupid in how they treat their people. Dad gave a
tour and showed the product on the video to her daughter? JAIL TIME, mofo.
JAIL! FFS, they could've turned this into their own family-friendly image or
whatever, yet they opted to turn it into a shitfest.

------
Overtonwindow
Really?? This just seems overkill. It was clearly not a willful violation. I
hate to see someone lose their job, especially because of their kids. Come on
Apple...

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
It clearly WAS a willful violation...

You aren't allowed film in the location they filmed, the filming took place
before the phone even shipped to carriers, and they released the film before
the ship date. And to top it off, there's no way to claim after viewing the
video that the father had no awareness; it was practically an interview.

Should Apple have fired him? I don't know. Was it a willful violation?
Absolutely it was.

~~~
jasonlotito
> You aren't allowed film in the location they filmed,

Are you sure? Because they clearly had no issue allowing the filming to take
place.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Apple has strict rules regarding filming on their campus; the rules are
posted.

~~~
jasonlotito
Clearly everyone that saw this filming taking place doesn't respect those
rules.

