A former Apple programmer will go on trial for disclosing secret information about Vision Pro virtual reality glasses. He passed it on to reporters to slow down product development. Apple intends to get even with him – he did not want to admit to espionage before the trial. Vision Pro was not the most successful – sales are minimal, there are a lot of returns.
On trial for draining
Apple has filed a lawsuit against its former employee Andrew Ode (Andrew Aude) for disclosing secret information about VisionOS-the operating system of virtual reality glasses Vision Pro, which went on sale in February 2024, writes Neowin. Od secretly passed information to journalists of several major publications, including The Information and The Wall Street Journal, in part out of an effort to slow down the development of VisionOS and Vision Pro itself.
Od himself worked for Apple as an iOS developer. He joined the company in 2016 and was engaged in optimizing battery power consumption in iOS. Apple's lawsuit against its now-former employee says that his position gave him access to classified information about dozens of the company's products. The document does not give their names.
Impressive scale of surveillance
According to Apple, Od was engaged in espionage and transmitting information about VisionOS to journalists for a relatively short time – from June to September 2023. The leak itself was revealed in November 2023.
It is worth noting that at that time, the Vision Pro headset was already announced-Apple briefly told about it in June 2023 at the WWDC 2023 conference, hiding almost all the details about the new product. The headset was released in early February 2024. As reported by CNews, official pre-orders for this device were immediately opened in Russia and the first domestic applications for VisionOS appeared. The launch of sales in the Russian market took place in mid-February 2024.
In three months of his clandestine activities, Andrew Aude managed to contact a Wall Street Journal journalist 1,400 times through encrypted messaging programs. Apparently, it was a secure messenger Signal-its name is mentioned several times in the Apple lawsuit.
Od also sent over 10 thousand messages to an employee of The Information publication, with whom he later held a personal meeting. According to information from the Apple statement, acting as an insider, Od shared details about both the VisionOS firmware itself and the Diary app. Along the way, he revealed to journalists details about the number of people working on Vision Pro and VisionOS and shared details about other products of the company.
Caution should be used in everything
When the Apple security service became aware of Oda's meetings with journalists in November 2023, it also turned out that he stored screenshots of correspondence directly on his work iPhone. At the same time, a confrontation was held – a conversation between Ode and Apple representatives, during which Andrew asked to go to the toilet, where he deleted "a significant part of the evidence" along with the Signal application, the lawsuit states.
One of the many screenshots of correspondence that were stored in the Oda smartphone
At this meeting, Od did not admit his guilt, but there was a second one, held on December 12, 2023. It was then that he confessed that he had leaked the data to at least two journalists.
No jobs, no promotions
On December 15, 2023, Apple fired Oda, asking him to return the company's stock options that he owned, which he received as an employee as a compensation package. He refused to do so and did not share any additional details about his activities with the company, thereby showing his unwillingness to settle the dispute in a pre-trial manner.
The current Apple lawsuit was the result of the Ode's refusal to cooperate. Now Apple wants to get damages from him through the court, the amount of which it does not specify, and the withdrawal of options on its shares. A separate requirement of Apple is to sign an Ode prohibiting the disclosure of absolutely any confidential information about the company to third parties without their written consent.
Was there a profit
It is not yet known whether the clandestine activities of Oda affected the development and release dates of Vision Pro, but we can not say that this product is in mass demand. These glasses made a lot of noise during their presentation in the summer of 2023 and spawned dozens of Chinese clones on Android even before the release and as many more after. After the release in early February 2024, Vision Pro did not disappear from the news feeds of publications, including non-core ones, for a couple of weeks, but all this hype did not make them popular.
One of the reasons is the high cost of the device. In the United States, points cost from $3,500 (333 thousand rubles at the exchange rate of the Central Bank on March 29, 2024) for the basic version with 256 GB of memory and without a set of necessary accessories. In Russia, at the start of sales, they were asked for from 580 thousand rubles.
Abroad, the service of hourly and even minute – by-minute rental Vision Pro quickly gained popularity-many people wanted to try a new "toy", but few were willing to pay such money for it. After some time, foreign stores even faced a massive refund of Vision Pro – after playing with them, users decided to return the money spent on them.
In Russia, the new Apple also "did not take off". For example, in two weeks of pre-orders, the MTS operator collected 600 applications from 30 Russian cities, but did not specify exactly how many headsets were sold in the end.
Kommersant journalists were able to lift the veil of secrecy. At the end of March 2024, they reported that only a few dozen such devices had been sold in Russia in less than a month since the release of Vision Pro.
On trial for draining
Apple has filed a lawsuit against its former employee Andrew Ode (Andrew Aude) for disclosing secret information about VisionOS-the operating system of virtual reality glasses Vision Pro, which went on sale in February 2024, writes Neowin. Od secretly passed information to journalists of several major publications, including The Information and The Wall Street Journal, in part out of an effort to slow down the development of VisionOS and Vision Pro itself.
Od himself worked for Apple as an iOS developer. He joined the company in 2016 and was engaged in optimizing battery power consumption in iOS. Apple's lawsuit against its now-former employee says that his position gave him access to classified information about dozens of the company's products. The document does not give their names.
Impressive scale of surveillance
According to Apple, Od was engaged in espionage and transmitting information about VisionOS to journalists for a relatively short time – from June to September 2023. The leak itself was revealed in November 2023.
It is worth noting that at that time, the Vision Pro headset was already announced-Apple briefly told about it in June 2023 at the WWDC 2023 conference, hiding almost all the details about the new product. The headset was released in early February 2024. As reported by CNews, official pre-orders for this device were immediately opened in Russia and the first domestic applications for VisionOS appeared. The launch of sales in the Russian market took place in mid-February 2024.
In three months of his clandestine activities, Andrew Aude managed to contact a Wall Street Journal journalist 1,400 times through encrypted messaging programs. Apparently, it was a secure messenger Signal-its name is mentioned several times in the Apple lawsuit.
Od also sent over 10 thousand messages to an employee of The Information publication, with whom he later held a personal meeting. According to information from the Apple statement, acting as an insider, Od shared details about both the VisionOS firmware itself and the Diary app. Along the way, he revealed to journalists details about the number of people working on Vision Pro and VisionOS and shared details about other products of the company.
Caution should be used in everything
When the Apple security service became aware of Oda's meetings with journalists in November 2023, it also turned out that he stored screenshots of correspondence directly on his work iPhone. At the same time, a confrontation was held – a conversation between Ode and Apple representatives, during which Andrew asked to go to the toilet, where he deleted "a significant part of the evidence" along with the Signal application, the lawsuit states.
One of the many screenshots of correspondence that were stored in the Oda smartphone
At this meeting, Od did not admit his guilt, but there was a second one, held on December 12, 2023. It was then that he confessed that he had leaked the data to at least two journalists.
No jobs, no promotions
On December 15, 2023, Apple fired Oda, asking him to return the company's stock options that he owned, which he received as an employee as a compensation package. He refused to do so and did not share any additional details about his activities with the company, thereby showing his unwillingness to settle the dispute in a pre-trial manner.
The current Apple lawsuit was the result of the Ode's refusal to cooperate. Now Apple wants to get damages from him through the court, the amount of which it does not specify, and the withdrawal of options on its shares. A separate requirement of Apple is to sign an Ode prohibiting the disclosure of absolutely any confidential information about the company to third parties without their written consent.
Was there a profit
It is not yet known whether the clandestine activities of Oda affected the development and release dates of Vision Pro, but we can not say that this product is in mass demand. These glasses made a lot of noise during their presentation in the summer of 2023 and spawned dozens of Chinese clones on Android even before the release and as many more after. After the release in early February 2024, Vision Pro did not disappear from the news feeds of publications, including non-core ones, for a couple of weeks, but all this hype did not make them popular.
One of the reasons is the high cost of the device. In the United States, points cost from $3,500 (333 thousand rubles at the exchange rate of the Central Bank on March 29, 2024) for the basic version with 256 GB of memory and without a set of necessary accessories. In Russia, at the start of sales, they were asked for from 580 thousand rubles.
Abroad, the service of hourly and even minute – by-minute rental Vision Pro quickly gained popularity-many people wanted to try a new "toy", but few were willing to pay such money for it. After some time, foreign stores even faced a massive refund of Vision Pro – after playing with them, users decided to return the money spent on them.
In Russia, the new Apple also "did not take off". For example, in two weeks of pre-orders, the MTS operator collected 600 applications from 30 Russian cities, but did not specify exactly how many headsets were sold in the end.
Kommersant journalists were able to lift the veil of secrecy. At the end of March 2024, they reported that only a few dozen such devices had been sold in Russia in less than a month since the release of Vision Pro.
