Apple Fires Engineer Over iPhone X Leak?

Engineer reportedly fired after his daughter posted a video of the iPhone X before the official launch.

There’s a tale or two going around the internet, one that leaves so many unanswered questions as to be nearly unbelievable. Reportedly, an engineer at Apple invited his daughter – Brooke Peterson –  to launch on the company’s campus, whipped out an unreleased iPhone X prototype, allowed her to fiddle with it… and then take a video of it which she released online.

News of the firing emerged when Brooke Peterson posted a follow-up video explaining why the original, in which she was seen trying out the iPhone X, was no longer available.

Duh, he got fired!

Well, not exactly. Multiple tech news outlets have reached out to Apple for confirmation of his firing, but received no response. That in and of itself is not shady, as many companies have policies against speaking about the termination of an employee. The engineer’s daughter, however, confirmed his firing in yet another video that she posted online, tearfully claiming that her dad was a good employee and Apple is a heartless bunch for not overlooking this mistake.

In the world of high-dollar tech – especially with product launches slated for that perfect window involving the holiday shopping season – a “mistake” is forgetting to plug in the coffee maker during crunch time, not posting an unauthorized video of a yet-to-be-released prototype. Add to this story the fact that the vapid YouTuber’s “playing” with the phone also opened multiple apps that revealed hush-hush QR codes and a text file of code names for upcoming products, and this story isn’t lining up.

But, really?

Either someone is chasing after 15 minutes of fame, or the company is “leaking” information to generate buzz. What better way to get some top secret consumer enticement out there than to unleash a “my dad got fired for this video” news story? In any case, the story isn’t holding water. While it’s certainly possible to be smart enough to be an engineer who builds the latest $1000 iPhone and yet be so stupid as to allow someone to take a video of it before its launch – while sitting on company property in view of other employees who are also enjoying their lunch – it’s so unlikely as to not be believed.