Apple sues YouTuber over iOS 26 leak, says he had a friend unlock an employee's phone
Jon Prosser leaked new features of iOS 26 months before WWDC.
Prosser said he "did not 'plot' to access anyone's phone and was unaware of the situation playing out."
In January, YouTuber Jon Prosser began showing off early renderings of Apple's iOS 26 on his channel, FrontPageTech. First was a redesigned camera rendering. In March, he teased Apple's "liquid glass" redesign, before giving a more thorough look in April.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, Apple says Prosser's leaks were ill-begotten. Apple sued Prosser and another man, Michael Ramacciotti, for misappropriation of trade secrets.
Prosser denied Apple's recounting of the events in an X post.
In the lawsuit, Apple says it received an anonymous tip linking Prosser's leaks to Ethan Lipnik, a software engineer at Apple from 2023-2025. Apple said it received the tip on April 4, months before the software debuted at WWDC, the company's annual conference where it launches products.
Apple alleged that Prosser commissioned Ramacciotti to break into Lipnik's development phone. Ramacciotti was a friend of Lipnik's, the suit says.
Apple says that while Ramaciotti was staying at Lipnik's house, he waited for his friend to leave, obtained the password for his device, and made a video call to Prosser showing off the features.
Apple alleged that Prosser then screen-recorded the video call, recreating the features in new renderings and publishing his copies on YouTube. Apple also says in the lawsuit that Prosser showed the video to other individuals, one of whom noticed Lipnik's apartment in the background, causing them to tip off the company.
"Apple takes great care to protect the secrecy of its unreleased products and features," the lawsuit reads. "These safeguards can only go so far to protect against bad actors determined to steal Apple's trade secrets."
Apple says in the lawsuit that it has since terminated Lipnik's employment. Apple did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Prosser, Ramacciotti, and Lipnik did not respond to email and social media messages seeking comment. Lawyers for Prosser and Ramacciotti have not yet been identified on the court docket.
"This is not how things went down on my end," Prosser wrote in response to a MacRumors story about the lawsuit on X. "For the record: I certainly did not 'plot' to access anyone's phone and was unaware of the situation playing out."
In its lawsuit, Apple asked the court for unspecified damages and an order preventing Prosser from disclosing other unreleased trade secrets that could have been on the device.
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