Prosser-Gate

Hello, welcome to the rare two-Tediums-in-one-day situation. I don’t do it often. But sometimes a story is interesting enough that I have a take I want to get out there.

If you’ve been following the Apple space for a long time you know that leaks make the world go round, and there are a handful of leakers who go out of their way to make their presence known. Often, Apple is hands-off with its fans, who seem to go hog-wild without the company saying a word. But a couple of categories tend to pull the legal team out:

• Companies that attempt to sell Hackintoshes commercially
• People who leak unreleased products

The latter is probably more infamous than the former. The Gizmodo situation with the iPhone 4, in which the site paid $5,000 for access to a leaked phone that they then reported on, still stands out as a key example of Apple dealing with leaks.

Earlier, there was the saga of Think Secret, in which an anonymous journalist, later determined to be Harvard student Nicholas Ciarelli, had uncovered evidence that Apple was about to launch the Mac Mini. The site, which Ciarelli had run as a teenager, had become one of the dominant Apple sites of the period. (It shut down in 2007 after a settlement with Apple.)

Add Jon Prosser, the publisher of the YouTube channel FrontPageTech, to the list. His channel, which started covering tech news before evolving into leak reporting and even long-form video, tends to show off mockups of phones and software with specific level of detail. (That said, his record isn’t perfect; some of his leaks miss the mark.) In recent years, he’s cooled off on the leaking somewhat, and leaned more into podcasting with his longtime sparring partner Sam Kohl, though their joint podcast recently ended. If you follow Apple rumors, Prosser is your guy.

Which is why the lawsuit he’s facing from Apple stands out. The specifics of the situation, if the suit is accurate, paint Prosser as someone willing to go beyond journalistic means to get a leak. Per the suit, Prosser used the access that a man in financial distress (co-defendant Michael Ramacciotti) had to an Apple employee to get access to early iOS designs. From the lawsuit:

Defendants’ misconduct was brazen and egregious. After Mr. Prosser learned that Mr. Ramacciotti needed money, and that his friend Ethan Lipnik worked at Apple on unreleased software designs, Defendants jointly planned to access Apple’s confidential and trade secret information through Mr. Lipnik’s Apple-owned development iPhone (the “Development iPhone”). Apple learned the details of the scheme in Mr. Ramacciotti’s own words—through an audio message to Mr. Lipnik, which Mr. Lipnik provided to Apple.

According to Mr. Ramacciotti’s message, while staying at Mr. Lipnik’s home, Mr Ramacciotti used location tracking to determine when Mr. Lipnik would be gone for an extended period, acquired his passcode, and broke into his Development iPhone, which Mr. Lipnik had failed to properly secure according to Apple’s policies. As he detailed in the audio message, Mr. Ramacciotti made a video call to Mr. Prosser and “showed iOS” on the Development iPhone. He demonstrated several features and applications, disclosing details of the unreleased iOS 19 operating system.

Prosser, notably, had posted a pair of videos leaking details of what became iOS 26. While the videos did not directly show real footage of the leaked software so as not to incriminate anyone, they did use recreations. The first version he leaked was notably denied by Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, who called the renders “based on either very old builds or vague descriptions.” (Turns out, per the lawsuit, it was the former.)

So Prosser produced a second version which was effectively on point with what showed up at WWDC, only missing small details. Three days before he posted the second leak, an anonymous tipster informed Apple of the source of the leaks, Lipnick.

“The iOS 19 information shared by Jon Prosser is sourced from Ethan Lipnik,” the note said.

For this, Lipnik lost his job because he had not secured his development iPhone properly. The leaks may amount to the theft of trade secrets based on the results of legal proceedings, but Lipnik comes off as the victim of the situation based on a read of the suit.

Prosser defended himself in a series of tweets, implying that Ramacciotti acted alone. “For the record: This is not how the situation played out on my end,” he explained, sharing a screenshot of the information he received. “Luckily have receipts for that.”

It should be noted that Prosser has been on Apple’s radar for a while. In a 2020 interview with OG YouTuber Jon Rettinger with the now-unfortunate title “Does Jon Prosser hack Apple?”, he stated that he was aware of an internal Apple investigation against him. “I’m aware of that because I have sources that are parked with the investigation that like relay information to me,” he said at the time. “And, of course, Apple’s first instinct is to go after my sources and try to figure out who they are, because if they stop the flow of information, they won’t even get to me in the first place.”

But not everyone is sure that this current situation passes the smell test. Notably, fellow YouTuber Luke Miani, who is friendly enough with Prosser that he makes an appearance in his Twitter profile header, called out Prosser’s actions as “unprofessional, unethical, and more than likely illegal.”

“I am always against large companies abusing their power to silence reporters or private citizens,” he wrote. “This is not that.”

It’s a little soon to say what happened here, but what I will say is that if the lawsuit matches how the situation played out, Lipnik suffered the most here, not Apple. Leaks are annoying, but I gotta be honest, this one did not exactly damage Apple’s bottom line. (I saw barely anyone referencing Prosser’s leaks when iOS 26 finally got announced.) But Lipnik did appear to lose his job—and likely a friend or two—simply because he trusted someone he shouldn’t have.

The way that I like to think about this puts this saga in Watergate terms. If you’re trying to get hold of information secretly, there are two ways to go about it. You can either lean into anonymous sources, getting to know a well-sourced “Deep Throat” of your own, or you can be a “Plumber,” the one breaking into the office and setting up a wiretap.

In terms of how history judges you, you can be Mark Felt, or you can be G. Gordon Liddy.

Which scenario best describes how Prosser got a hold of his leaks?