Apple sues leaker Jon Prosser for stealing iOS secrets

by Shivendra Singh · July 18, 2025

Prosser is accused of stealing trade secrets to leak details of iOS 26’s design before its announcement at WWDC.

Apple has sued the well-known leaker Jon Prosser for the alleged theft of trade secrets related to iOS 26. Prosser has been accused of tasking another man, Michael Ramacciotti, with secretly accessing an Apple employee’s development iPhone and using that information to report on Apple’s planned changes in the then-unannounced iOS 26.

According to the lawsuit, Apple claims that Prosser offered Ramacciotti “money or a future job opportunity” in exchange for access to a company phone belonging to his friend Ethan Lipnik, an Apple software engineer working on iOS. Ramacciotti allegedly learnt Lipnik’s iPhone passcode, used “location-tracking” to determine when he’d be away from home for an extended period, and then accessed the iPhone running a development version of the mobile OS. Apple says that Ramacciotti showed the software to Prosser over a video call, which Prosser recorded, shared with others, and used to create renders of the new designs.

Apple says it found out the details of what happened in April from an anonymous email from someone who claimed to have seen Prosser’s recording of the call and …read more