Apple is getting this wrong(openai.com) |
Apple is getting this wrong(openai.com) |
Oops.
On a serious notes, this seems like a desperate attempt to sway public opinion, but hey, Apple is no saint either. This will be a fun season.
I stopped right there. I am sorry but I can't deal with promo articles that begin with incorrect claims made.
Guys, just stop posting. Listen to your counsel.
Keep your garbage for the court.
PR is not a moat buddy.
The veiled implication here is hilariously petty. This entire document is hilariously petty. And apparently, ignorant of the news cycle.
This does not build more trust in OpenAI. If it's-totally-a-misunderstanding and Apple-should-have-communicated-better is the best they can offer, well, good luck in court.
Is also rather funny when hiring HUNDREDS of their engineers.
“They now admit that their outside lawyers emailed the wrong person after confusing two Asian last names—only after we brought this to their attention.”
Finally some proper gen-z representation. Maybe a Cluely-like office comedy web series next? I sense potential.
What a fucking a joke - throw some cheap shots in there trying to stir things up by pointing out they were Asian
Everything I read about OpenAI makes me dislike them more and more - really can’t stand that company’s culture - I have “friends” who work there and it makes complete sense
By choosing to release these receipts to the public instead of saving them for court, OpenAI is executing a very deliberate PR strategy. They are effectively framing Apple as a sloppy, legacy company. As with most corporate litigation PR, information is selectively released. Here, OpenAI is trying to reframe Apple's own operational failures as the root cause, rather than any actual technology theft by OpenAI.
Looking at the bigger picture, it's clear who is actually at a disadvantage: OpenAI.
Whether Apple's tech was copied or not is almost secondary. The real existential threat for OpenAI is the legal discovery process, which could expose their internal AI architecture and training data to the public (and to Apple). That risk is exactly why OpenAI is playing this out in the court of public opinion—to force Apple's hand.
Ultimately, both sides have a lot to lose. Apple has always marketed itself on 'privacy, security, and perfection,' but this incident pulls back the curtain on how sloppy their internal operations can be. OpenAI has their own black boxes to protect. In the end, this isn't about truth; it's a pure media management war to see who blinks first.
What happens if someone is fired and had kept info only on their personal account that is highly valuable ? Or wants to steal corporate info?
Moreover OpenAI says, “[Apple] now admits that Apple employees reached out to him and asked for his help to locate this information”, but the transcript they cite seems to me to show the opposite? It’s Chang Liu asking for someone to help him copy data. The part where Apple employees reach out is later and it’s not for copying data to a hard drive… it’s basically “who should I talk to about this project?” Which makes sense because when he was contacted it was after he left (so he wouldn’t have access to data)
Can someone please tell me what am I missing? None of this makes sense with what they’re saying. The fact that the lawyer emailed the wrong person is moot if they caught it and resolved it days later.
- Leaving employee (LE) needs a USB stick to copy data off their Mac to give to their Manager (MA) so someone at Apple still has access
- After LE left, MA has access to LE Mac and iCloud to still access some data
- At some point, LE asks MA to sign out off LE's iMessage account on that Mac as they suspect they'll get OpenAI-related messages soon and don't want Apple/MA to see them
- Eventually, MA deletes the Apple files in LE's iCloud
But they're also quite explicit and repeat the directive (including during the exit interview) about removing Apple files from your account when you leave, and logging out of iCloud from the Apple devices you leave behind.
Also:
> At some point, LE asks MA to sign out off LE's iMessage account
You can sign out remotely, so this would've been stupid of everyone involved.
Then again, this whole situation demonstrates a level of stupidity from supposedly competent people that I wish I could say was unbelievable. Add "Making a public post about a topic under litigation" under that category too.
I would expect them to start out with something like Apple is suing us for yada yada yada, but instead it reads like the diary of a hurt teenager.
I'm sure saner heads like their legal people would prevail at some point, but until then...
Now seeing the worlds most powerful organisations act like children doesn't surprise me at all.
...yeah, that's a tough one...
Or maybe it isn't and stuff really is complicated like OpenAI makes it sound like. Or maybe I am cynical enough to believe OpenAI made this public post as a legal way to collude and make sure all involved parties can get their stories aligned without having to do secret communication that could be tracked and used as evidence of collusion.
(This last one is truly an unfounded claim, and just there to complicate OpenAI's narrative but the point is I don't see the point in making this public).
Is it standard practice at both Apple and OpenAI for employees to use their personal icloud account for work?
I'm not Apple's biggest fan either (I got super upset when they conveniently wiped out all information about the person comiting suicide in one of their conference rooms and TMZ caught the police line and the sherif said "there is a gun, next to a dead person, we can't say much at the moment" and that was it). But it is unlikely that Apple would depriortize its brand on a fake story.
RIP https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Ed_Mackowiak - Apple’s statement is linked there (and the bit about the woman in the Wiki might be outdated per TMZ correction https://www.tmz.com/2016/04/27/apple-campus-body-found-cuper... )
I think you're right, but let's not forget that Apple's goal isn't to protect themselves or to get a fat payout here. Their goal is to make their current employees less likely to leave for an offer at a company like OpenAI. This suit is telling everyone Apple employs "Hey, if you leave and we can find anything that looks a bit dubious, we're happy to screw you over."
Apple aren't a loving and caring company that nurtures people. They're as ruthless as the next trillion-dollar unicorn.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/apple-...
OpenAI, even after raising this much capital, had never anticipated that something like this could happen yet keeps digging it's own grave.
At this point all that's left is for them to kiss and pay else they're done.
Apple vs OpenAI will be the war of legacies, trust and innovation.
Hubris.
Wild that a company this big would post this on their official, public blog.
> I think I’m going to have to hit the workday button before I’m complete. I just got a weird message that is making me nervous (see below), so I am going to go hit the workday button now.
Models are a lost cause anyway - https://open.substack.com/pub/taikhooms/p/why-openrouter-can...
A substantial amount of evidence in Apple's complaint isn't addressed, but what's shown here throws a decent amount of shade and doubt.
I have my popcorn ready for discovery. I hope it gets to that point, and I hope it proceeds to trial...
I find it bizarre that they felt the need to specify "Asian". What does that have to do with anything?
Upward of 40% Vietnamese have surname "Nguyen".
"Li" is quite popular in China.
Specifying "Asian last name" in this context is quite apt.
I think they are hoping what they did with Elon will work with Apple.
It's in court already, fight it there. Even if you win public opinion with your point of view you can still lose in court.
Assuming the exhibits aren't sealed they're publicly available as soon as they're entered by the court during trial.
If they're sealed there's probably a good reason they shouldn't be published until the trial is over (or ever in some cases)
They built their whole business model on stolen data and act surprised when another company has zero trust in them.
Based on their track record this lawsuit is not unexpected at all.
I have been fixated on this topic for some time. Most people behave in a regulated and lawful manner to be on safer side. They do not trespass into some ones home just cause the owner happened to leave the door open.
Companies are using LLMs to hack into other organizations and giving it a spin about agent escaping the sand box. I am surprised how the impacted organizations are not filing lawsuits for damages unless they themselves have something to hide, (probably their reputation). Interestingly from what I remember there is a law that binds the public companies to reveal any intrusion, unless I am missing the names of impacted companies by LLM agent great escape has not been revealed fully.
It doesn't sound to me like Apple is pursuing individuals that merely had company data on their computers but rather these individuals then went on to share said data with other individuals.
It is extremely smelly that Apple doesn't isolate personal versus business accounts in its HR practices. Its also pretty lame that a multi-user operating system has been lobotomized to sell more hardware in that sense.
> Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction is both based on false information and completely unnecessary because we do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets.
Well, I guess that settles it, then! Case closed.
Seriously, what is point of this?
Besides, I have absolutely no idea what this is about or whether I should care.
Its insane this is coming from a company with as much scope as openai. Scope may not be the right word.
Yep, down to the pages of iMessage screenshots
Specifically Thoughts on Flash, but there were probably more such press releases.
[0] https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/web-design-history/steve-job...
They literally have communication experts sitting there, breaking their heads over how to influence the public opinion in the company’s favor.
I guess they learned it from Elon: if people like you, they’ll just hold your stock forever, even if you don’t make much money.
Is that the Elon lesson? I see him behave terribly and suffer little consequence. Much like his political buddies.
If you noticed Sam Altman's latest posts he moved to all lower case, including "I", which I see as due to the same reason
Source: https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/08/03/confidential-appl...
So yeah.
Facebook is equally bad on this front - requiring you to use your personal account to administrate business pages (don't even get me started on how they forced large businesses to use a custom 2FA method they then phased out - locking people out of their personal accounts forever).
If accurate, it is of course patently absurd that Apple has left this an unsolved problem.
I don’t understand people that create separate Apple accounts for work.
I’ve always used my personal account on corp laptops, including MFAANG. It’s awesome being able to use side car on my personal machines, hand-off on my AirPods, or screen mirroring to my Apple TV during conference calls. What are you gaining from isolating your account? Why even bother making a fake account at all?
I keep two phones, one for work, another for private life, and also two laptops for the same reason. The support for multi-identity is very inconvenient on apple[1], and very poor with whatsapp, signal and, really, most apps except for Google's. Shame, really, considering how well funded Apple and Meta are, and how little effort would be needed to implement the 80% of what people need: the ability to chat using different identities, without touching the rest of the OS wiring.
[1] on macos, its possible to create users with multiple apple id associations, but not on iphone
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/08/03/apple-icloud-sharing-ex...
This doesn't seem out of line with common practices at other big tech firms. If you go work at Meta, your personal Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp/Oculus accounts become intrinsically linked to your work login identity (though a few employees created a secondary account on of all those to prevent this).
Although there are better controls than there used to be, it's not all that uncommon for sensitive work data to leak through this linkage into the public products...
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Someone went on Reddit to ask if they really had to use their personal Facebook account to manage the company page as they said their boss pushed back against the idea, saying, “Do you think when Disney manages their Facebook page that Disney marketing execs have to use their personal Facebook accounts?”
And it seemed like the answer may well have been yes. There must be some value to Zuckerberg in tying it all together.
Yes.
We’ve always been asked to use our personal Apple account to install apps used for work.
Which has happened. Bonkers configuration.
Their track record, and the narcissistic tone where they talk so confidently about how they are morally superior companies than others, and all they care about is public good.
https://source.android.com/docs/devices/admin/multi-user
Either with a single local account that accesses multiple Google accounts, or multiple local accounts. Though this is device specific, it may be disabled by your manufacturer/provider.
As mentioned elsewhere though, an enrolled phone is an enrolled phone so corporate wiping will wipe the entire phone and not just the profile.
I'm out of the loop now, though.
Android did have better support at the time, but if I remember correctly, devices that had a work managed profile on them could still be completely wiped, including the personal/private container.
A bit of a pain, but I've always preferred (where possible) to have separate work and personal devices.
Wouldn't want one phone to be both personal and work though. They owned it, idk if I could've put my own sim in without unforeseen issues, it could've been wiped like you said, and it ofc got wiped when I quit.
Apple is then "just" monitoring the corporate user account for security reasons, it was the employee who decided to use the same account for private purposes...
Regular companies have people that talk to the media or maybe run some ads. OpenAI is trying to have in-house media.
For a frontier lab it’s striking just how much energy (and dough) goes into this.
You’re right of course that PR exists elsewhere, but that obviously true assertion misses the finer details of how PR works at OpenAI. In doing so it functions as a thought-terminating cliché.
A friend of mine is a svp of something something and his corp was sued by antitrust regulators. One day police is at his doorstep - not even a legal letter - and they took his phone then and there. Super disruptive, considering one usually has a lot of MFA tied to the phone.