The Wall Street Journal has a story about the employee of an Apple supplier who was indicted for leaking Apple secrets to a colleague, including iPhone 4 details. But more interesting are his revelations about what Apple will fire you over.
Forbes unearthed revelations after scouring through the court documents, and according to a phone conversation with Walter Shimoon, the Flextronics biz dev director who was indicted, any mention of the term “K48″ will land your arse the first ticket out of 1 Infinite Loop. K48, you see, was the codename for the (now released) iPad, which was under heavy secrecy when this phone conversation was recorded.
What happens if you unknowingly mention a codename by accident? Does the entire Apple campus go into lockdown mode when this happens? Does Steve step out of the shadows and waterboard you? I guess that’s the risk you run when you help to create MAGIC. [WSJ via Forbes]
wsDK_II
Friday, December 17, 2010 at 11:49 AMOnce again another reason why i will never support the apple company
Simon Reidy
Friday, December 17, 2010 at 12:23 PMThis story is a beat up. So some criminal who is indicted for leaking secrets, says that Apple will fire people for mentioning a codename and the writer takes it as gospel?
It’s far more likely the fire employee meant Apple will fire anyone for disclosing secrets about anything they are working on. At the time that just happened to be their ultra-secret K48 project which would become the iPad. And why the hell shouldn’t they fire people who leak? Maintaining secrecy is critical to remain a step ahead of their competitors. There are these little things known as ‘Non-Disclosure Agreements’.
We all know Apple has their evil ways, but I don’t see what is so crazy about them maintaining a strict zero policy enforcement when it comes to secret product development. We all they are aren’t an open company like Google, but being closed is working for them very well so far…
Michael
Monday, December 20, 2010 at 1:27 AMHey aren’t you one of the guys that came out supporting Julian Assange? I apologise if I’m wrong, but you may need google ‘paradox’ and ‘hypocrite’ as a matter of urgency.
Joel
Friday, December 17, 2010 at 1:10 PMI’m pretty sure you wouldn’t get fired for just the codename. It’s more probable that you’d get fired for the rest of the sentence surrounding the codename.
“K48″
“Huh?”
“I’m working on a new project with Apple codenamed K48 but it’s top secret so I probably shouldn’t be mentioning it but it does all sorts of cool shit and you’re probably going to buy one”
“Cool”
See the difference?
All this is in Apple’s policy when you get a job there. Honestly, everyone that works there knows what contract they signed. If they don’t like the contract, they don’t sign.
Mr Biggles
Friday, December 17, 2010 at 3:13 PMWow… K48, not iK48 – no wonder they were pissed…!