An Apple engineer found out the hard way what happens if your kid puts a video of your iPhone X online before Apple thinks it’s OK. And now, he’s out of a job.
CUPERTINO — If you work at Apple, you really should take a lesson from the movie “Fight Club.”
That appears to be: The first rule of Apple is, “You do not talk about Apple.” The second rule of Apple is, “You DO NOT talk about Apple.”
And you especially don’t let an Apple product be seen in public before Apple wants it to be seen. An Apple engineer learned that lesson the hard way, and is now said to be out of a job.
Ken Bauer is now a former Apple engineer after his daughter, Brooke Amelia Peterson, posted on YouTube what was, for the most part, a pretty innocuous video of a day in September that included her going shopping and taking part in some other run-of-the-mill activities, one of which was visiting and having dinner with her father.
But, that dinner occurred on the Apple campus in Cupertino. And during their time together, Bauer showed his daughter an iPhone X and let her test it out a bit. In the video, Peterson demonstrated some of the features of the iPhone X. Altogether, the video included approximately 45 seconds of Bauer’s iPhone X.
And that’s what got Apple’s ire up.
Peterson posted the video. The video got picked up by some Apple-related sites, including the influential blog 9to5 Mac, and went viral. Apple asked Peterson to take the video down. She did.
And Apple fired her dad.
Over the weekend, Peterson posted a new video on YouTube in which she detailed why Apple fired her father. Peterson laid out what had happened, and didn’t really blame the company for giving her dad the axe, saying, “They had to do what they had to do.”
Peterson said that in spite of Apple firing her dad, she will still buy Apple’s products.
Apple did not immediately return a request for comment about Bauer’s firing.
It’s possible that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook could give the engineer the equivalent of a presidential pardon and welcome him back into the Apple fold, but Apple is known for cracking down hard and showing no mercy when it comes to leaks, whether on purpose, or accidental.
Adding to the matter is the fact that Peterson’s original video didn’t show a product that Apple could claim was a secret. Apple had already revealed and put on a display of the iPhone X, along with the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, at a company event in Cupertino on Sept. 12.
Apple began taking pre-orders for the iPhone X on Friday, Oct. 27. The phone goes on sale at Apple stores on Nov. 3, one day after Apple reports its fiscal fourth-quarter results.
Apple hasn’t detailed how many iPhone X units were placed during the first weekend of orders. But several analysts who follow Apple have said that consumer surveys suggest there is high demand for the iPhone X. That should help boost Apple’s results during the holiday-shopping quarter, which is typically Apple’s busiest period of the year.
