In July, Apple sued well-known YouTuber Jon Prosser and his acquaintance Michael Ramacciotti over alleged theft of the company's trade secrets, after Prosser leaked some iOS 26 details in videos uploaded to his YouTube channel Front Page Tech. If you are not caught up on the lawsuit, read our initial coverage to learn more.


Earlier this week, Prosser told The Verge he has "been in active communications with Apple since the beginning stages of this case," despite Apple's attorneys indicating he missed his deadline to formally respond to the complaint. The court entered a default judgment against Prosser last week, citing his failure to respond.

"The notion that I'm ignoring the case is incorrect," said Prosser. "That's all I am able to say."

In a court document filed on Thursday, Apple's attorneys said they are aware that Prosser has "publicly acknowledged" the complaint. However, they said he "has not indicated whether he will file a response to it or, if so, by when."

As for Ramacciotti, Apple said he has agreed to respond to the complaint by October 29.

In a statement filed with the court, Ramacciotti's attorneys said he is "not a professional leaker," but rather "a lifelong Apple fanboy who failed to fully appreciate the value and proprietary nature of the information that he learned about iOS 26."

Ramacciotti had "no intent to monetize this information" when he contacted Prosser, they said.

Apple is concerned that Ramacciotti "intentionally deleted relevant evidence," including "several hundreds of thousands of text messages," after the company advised him of the need to preserve evidence on July 23. His attorneys disputed this assertion.

Apple and Ramacciotti have informally discussed a potential settlement, and these talks were "ongoing," according to the court filing on Thursday.
This article, "iOS 26 Leaker Being Sued by Apple is Actually a 'Lifelong Apple Fanboy'" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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The court order that required Apple to collect no fees from developers who link to purchases outside of the App Store is unconstitutional, Apple said today in a reply brief directed at Epic Games and filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Apple argues that it has been stripped of its rights to be compensated for its intellectual property in a ruling that sets a dangerous precedent for all companies.


Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who has been overseeing the Apple vs. ‌Epic Games‌ lawsuit, first ordered Apple in 2021 to let developers add in-app links directing customers to third-party purchase options on the web. Apple didn't have to implement the changes until 2024, and when it did, Apple charged a 12 to 27 percent fee for purchases made through links in an app. ‌Epic Games‌ went back to the judge and said Apple was charging "unjustified fees" and should be held in contempt of court.

Gonzalez Rogers agreed with Epic and said that Apple was in "willful violation" of the original order. In April 2025, Apple was given a much more specific mandate to allow linking with no fees and no control over how links are presented in an app, which was a win for ‌Epic Games‌ and for other app developers unhappy with paying fees to link out to the web. Apple implemented the changes, but appealed the ruling.

According to Apple, the 12 to 27 percent fee that it was charging and the rules that it had implemented around link design complied with the original order. The April ruling [PDF] forcing Apple to implement ‌App Store‌ changes said that Apple had not followed the "spirit of the injunction" and had instead used a "dubiously literal interpretation," a point that Epic emphasized in its own filing with the court. In response, Apple argues that this is a weak argument that led to the injunction being expanded beyond what is permissible by law.

The new injunction imposes, in meticulous detail, new design and formatting rules and dictates the messages that Apple may convey to its own users on its own platform. These requirements represent an improper expansion and modification of the original injunction—rather than an attempt to enforce compliance with the original injunction—and violate the First Amendment by forcing Apple to convey messages it disagrees with. Epic doubles down on the district court's emphasis on the "spirit" of the original injunction and Apple’s supposed bad faith, but civil contempt turns on whether a party has violated the actual terms of an injunction—which Epic does not meaningfully try to show

Apple argues that it should be able to ask for compensation for its IP protected technologies, and that the court should have forced compliance with the original injunction instead of rewriting the injunction with new terms that prohibit Apple from collecting fees.

The district court's sweeping new zero-commission rule also is not tailored to Epic's claimed harm, improperly imposes a punitive sanction, and effects an unconstitutional taking.

Should the Ninth Circuit Court find the updated injunction lawful, Apple suggests that the recent Trump v. Casa Supreme Court ruling [PDF] needs to be considered. The ruling said courts do not have the authority to issue universal injunctions that are "broader than necessary to provide complete relief" to the plaintiffs in the case. ‌Epic Games‌ is the only plaintiff in the case, so Apple also argues that the injunction changing the ‌App Store‌ rules for all developers is too broad. Apple says that the injunction should be tailored to Epic and Epic's interests alone.

Epic has never demonstrated how requiring Apple to permit all manner of linked-out purchases from any developer—and prohibiting Apple from collecting any commission on such purchases—is necessary to remedy Epic’s full harm, particularly for linked-out transactions that do not involve Epic. Just the opposite, Epic has lined up amici to describe how they wish to steer on the back of Apple's IP-protected technologies at zero cost to themselves, and not to the Epic Games Store.

... Requiring Apple to permit linked-out transactions to Spotify, Microsoft, or Amazon does not benefit Epic in any way and is not necessary to remedy any harm suffered by Epic.

Apple wants the new injunction vacated, and the original injunction reconsidered to determine whether it is too broad.

As of right now, Apple is required to allow all developers in the U.S. to provide links to external websites with no restrictions on link design and no fees. If the appeals court rules in Apple's favor, Apple could change its ‌App Store‌ rules again to reimplement fees.
This article, "Apple Says App Store Changes Go Too Far in New Epic Games Appeal Filing" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Elon Musk's xAI startup today filed a Texas lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI, accusing the two companies of conspiring to "ensure their continued dominance" in the AI market.


Earlier this month, Musk threatened to sue Apple and OpenAI because his apps X and Grok have not been featured in the App Store's "Must Have" apps section, and he has now followed through with that threat.

The lawsuit suggests that Apple was "blindsided by major innovations in AI," leading it to team up with OpenAI "in a desperate bid to protect its smartphone monopoly." xAI points to the integrated ChatGPT feature for Siri, because ‌Siri‌'s ability to reference a chatbot is exclusive to OpenAI as of now.

xAI claims that if iPhone users want to access a generative AI chatbot, "they have no choice but to use ChatGPT, even if they would prefer to use more innovative and imaginative products like xAI's Grok." xAI says that while ‌iPhone‌ users can download any chatbot app on their devices, it would not have the same level of "functionality, usability, and integration" as ChatGPT does with ‌Siri‌. There is also clear evidence that Apple is working to integrate other chatbots like Gemini into ‌Siri‌, including a statement from Google CEO Sundar Pichai about talks on that very subject.

The lawsuit states that Apple has been "deprioritizing" the apps of competing generative AI chatbots and apps like X in the ‌App Store‌ and delaying ‌App Store‌ updates, plus it complains that xAI has not been able to get data from billions of ‌iPhone‌ users for training Grok because it is not integrated with ‌Siri‌ like ChatGPT. xAI blames Apple and OpenAI for its failure to "attain more than a few percent of the generative AI chatbot market."

Despite their high rankings in the subject-matter-based "Top Apps" lists, neither the X app nor the Grok app appeared in the "Must-Have Apps" section of the App Store on August 24, 2025. Instead, as reflected in Figure 5 below, the first 11 listed apps in the "Must-Have Apps" section on August 24, 2025 do not include the X app or the Grok app. Neither the X app nor the Grok app appears further down on the list, either. This is also true of other generative AI chatbot and super app competitors.

xAI asks that the court put a stop to Apple and OpenAI's "anticompetitive scheme" and that the two companies be forced to pay damages.
This article, "Elon Musk Sues Apple and OpenAI Over Alleged App Store Conspiracy Against X and Grok" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple today filed a lawsuit in Northern California against Chen Shi, a former employee who left Apple and took a job at Chinese smartphone maker Oppo. According to Apple, Shi stole trade secrets relating to Apple Watch development and provided the information to Oppo.


Shi was a "highly compensated Sensor System Architect" at Apple from January 2020 to June 2025, which meant he had access to "valuable trade secret information," including the Apple Watch design, development documentation, internal specifications, and product roadmap.

Apple says that Shi told the company he was returning to China to care for his elderly parents, with no mention that he had accepted a position at Oppo. While in the process of leaving Apple, Shi allegedly collected sensitive Apple Watch documents and attended "dozens" of one-on-one meetings with Apple Watch technical team members to "learn about their ongoing research and development efforts."

Three days before leaving Apple, Shi downloaded 63 files from Apple's protected Box folder and transferred them to a USB drive. After downloading the files, he searched for information on how to wipe a MacBook and whether someone could see if he'd opened a file on a shared drive. Further, Shi sent a message to his Oppo employers letting them know that he would "collect as much information as possible" to share with them, specifically sourcing data on heart rate sensing methods. At Oppo, Shi is now leading a team that is developing sensing technology.

Apple is asking for an injunction prohibiting Oppo and Shi from using or disclosing Apple's trade secrets, restitution, damages, punitive damages, and attorneys' fees.


This article, "Apple Sues Ex-Employee Who Allegedly Stole Apple Watch Secrets for Chinese Rival Oppo" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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