Apple leaks have been around for ages now, but they have changed in the last two years. It all started with my mate and fellow leaker Jon Prosser. More specifically, when he leaked the exact day and time of the iPhone SE press release. At first glance, this may seem like accurate information that he somehow obtained, but more importantly, it set a precedent for who could and couldn’t be a leaker.
Until then, the only way you were recognized as a leaker was if a media outlet was behind you. No one believed what a Twitter user had to say about future Apple products. It could not be accurate in the public’s eyes simply because a social media account didn’t look reputable. But, as I just mentioned, Jon changed that. He stood up to the media. He contradicted them, and he was right. That changed the way people looked at Twitter leaks. They were suddenly believable.
As a result, dozens of leak accounts were created. All of them claimed to be people who had confidential information about Apple. Most of them were exposed after a few weeks when they turned out to be fake, but others are still active today.
My account is a good example of that. I will be honest with you; I made some mistakes when I started my journey. I had sources pretending to have information, and I basically believed everything I was told in Twitter DMs by random people. Back then, I didn’t know how to go about it.
Fortunately for everyone, I have greatly improved the way I verify sources. Right now, it’s a really complicated process that I can not explain for security reasons, but I can tell you that it involves several steps and a lot of information.
I still believe there are fake Twitter accounts claiming to have inside information about Apple. So I would like to offer a tip to everyone. Do not believe everything you see online. Trust what sounds right to you and what people you trust are saying—people with a track record of accuracy.
This change in how leaks work has made things better for people like you and me, but there are still accounts out there falsifying their information, and we can not control that. And there is one other thing that has changed since the revolutionization of leaks: Apple itself.
Apple launches used to be very secretive. Today, we know when products will launch and basically every new feature even before Apple announces the event where they will be unveiled. This did not happen four years ago, and Apple is really trying to solve this problem by introducing numerous security measures when developing new products. Measures such as special rooms that only a certain number of people have access to or requiring employees to wear police-like body cameras when working on unreleased product prototypes to prevent photos from being taken.
Apple has also reduced the number of employees working on these products and the number of people attending key meetings about them. In addition, the work has been divided among employees so that only a few get to see a fully functional prototype. Most only work with parts that say nothing about the product.
Apple has also made the non-disclosure agreement that employees have to sign more restrictive. Employees also have to turn in all of their electronic devices when asked to do so, so Apple can verify what they sent and who they sent it to, I am told. So what about the future?
I expect Apple to be even more restrictive about these things until the leaks stop. It works. I get less information now than I did six months ago, but I think Apple employees will continue to leak things, and there’s not much else the company can do about it. Apple could make it harder, and I know it will, but ultimately there will continue to be leaks, and I will be here to tell you about them. Thank you for reading!