The most consequential YouTube video of Jon Prosser’s profession opens on Prosser himself, in a black hoodie and clear glasses. The backdrop is acquainted to viewers of his tech information channel, Front Page Tech, with heat, hanging lights and a vivid white “fpt” brand behind him. Prosser stares meaningfully into the digicam, and kicks the video off with only one line of introduction: “I have seen some things.”
The video debuted on January seventeenth, 2025, with the title “Here’s your very first look at iOS 19.” For six and a half minutes, Prosser describes an unreleased model of Apple’s iPhone software program, not set to be publicly revealed for an additional six months. The pictures in the video, he’s cautious to notice, are re-creations of what he noticed relatively than the authentic pictures. But the implication is evident: Somebody confirmed Prosser the unreleased software program. “I can say with 100 percent certainty,” he says at the finish of the video, “that what I showed you is real.” Then he not-so-subtly asks his viewers to leak him much more.
In that first video, and in two others Front Page Tech printed over the subsequent three months, Prosser defined progressively extra particulars of a long-awaited redesign for iOS, primarily based largely on the software program in the Vision Pro headset. The movies didn’t get the whole lot proper; Some of the finer particulars have been totally different when Apple lastly launched the software program in June at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. The closing software program wasn’t even known as iOS 19 — it was iOS 26. But Prosser was proper about loads of it, and about the huge concepts behind the OS and the design system it was primarily based on that Apple would name Liquid Glass. By the time June arrived, in case you had seen Prosser’s movies, you already knew the huge information of WWDC.
For Prosser, a longtime Apple leaker, this was possibly his largest scoop but. But on July seventeenth, the firm filed a lawsuit in opposition to him in a California court docket. In a grievance that additionally named Michael Ramacciotti as a defendant, the world’s second-largest firm alleged a “coordinated scheme to break into an Apple development phone, steal Apple’s trade secrets, and profit from the theft.” It accused Prosser and Ramacciotti of coordinating to interrupt into an Apple worker’s cellphone, with Prosser as each mastermind and cash man.
Prosser was hardly the first particular person to ever share info Apple wasn’t able to publicize. Ordinarily, the firm refuses to acknowledge leaks and simply continues on as if it’s all nonetheless a secret. But this time, the most secretive firm in tech determined to select a struggle in public.
Apple hates leaks. It has all the time hated leaks.
The firm loves the artwork of the grand reveal. Some of the firm’s most memorable moments are the introduction of the iPhone — “These are not three separate devices!” — in addition to Steve Jobs pulling the first iPod Nano out of the small pocket of his denims and taking the first MacBook Air out of a manila envelope. Secrecy is so core to Apple’s tradition that usually, workers be a part of the firm not even understanding what merchandise they’ll be engaged on. Leaks, the firm has lengthy mentioned, spoil the firm’s deliberate surprises and rob workers of the pleasure of lastly revealing their work to the public.
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images, Turbosquid
Employees at Apple love the shock, and not simply the executives, says John Gruber, who has been overlaying Apple on Daring Fireball for greater than 20 years. While Apple’s largest occasions have not too long ago featured recorded video displays as a substitute of splashy (and doubtlessly dangerous) stay demos, he says that at Apple’s former huge stay spectacles, a staff that was engaged on an enormous new characteristic introduced in the keynote would get good seats, “so they got to be there when it was unveiled and hear people cheer.”
The thriller of a brand new launch, and the rumor and hype cycles that precede it, are additionally a part of the mystique of following Apple. But it’s not nearly peeking into know-how’s equal of Willy Wonka’s chocolate manufacturing facility. Even small-scale leaks give Apple’s competitors an thought of what they is perhaps up in opposition to, give ancillary companies like product accent makers a head begin on what they could wish to make, and give common folks an thought of whether or not it’s price ready for the subsequent system.
Prosser acquired into the leaks sport by “accident,” he instructed YouTuber Jon Rettinger in 2020. The first consequential leak he recalled was the Samsung Galaxy S20 and S20 Ultra, which launched in 2020 — Prosser mentioned he was despatched costs for the telephones by a supply from T-Mobile and tweeted them. Samsung, at its reveal days later, then introduced the telephones with the identical costs Prosser had tweeted. “That is a cool feeling,” he recounted to Rettinger. “We told the future. And that’s what started it.”
Even when Prosser was leaking issues like Galaxy costs and the time of day an iPhone could be launched, he instructed Rettinger that the leaking life was “a lot more stressful than I thought.” “I know that I play a character online,” he mentioned, “on the show and on Twitter, but really, behind the scenes, it’s insanely stressful.” He mentioned he’d talked to different reporters and leakers who had stop the sport when it acquired too irritating. And he knew effectively, even then, that “it only takes one wrong leak to ruin a reputation.”
Front Page Tech wasn’t particularly designed to be a leaker channel, however because it turned related to revealing unreleased tech, leaks started to beget leaks. And the channel continued to develop, and it’s now an concerned manufacturing with near 600,000 subscribers. In the oldest video on Front Page Tech, a younger Prosser stands in entrance of a white background, dressed casually in a fleece over a purple T-shirt, and talks about the newest information in tech for eight minutes. Now, Prosser typically stands in entrance of the huge fpt brand, main with attention-grabbing introductions and breathlessly narrating professionally made graphics of latest units. He’s typically carrying black. It’s all, you would possibly say, a bit Jobs-ian.
“I do not intentionally post anything that I do not believe.”
“I don’t make many videos,” Prosser tells The Verge. “I spend days, weeks, sometimes months working on a single video.” As of late, nearly all of these movies are about Apple — and lots of them purport to have particulars on still-unreleased units like the iPhone 18 Pro and the iPhone Fold. “I like to fill the gap in between concept and tangible product,” Prosser says. He provides that “I do not intentionally post anything that I do not believe.”
According to Apple’s lawsuit, the firm obtained a tip electronic mail on April 4th, 2025. (The lawsuit redacts the sender.) The mysterious tipster alleged that Prosser’s details about “iOS 19” was sourced from an Apple worker, Ethan Lipnik. Prosser, the tip claims, had a FaceTime name between Lipnik “or a friend of Lipnik’s” the place the secret interface was proven. “Prosser has details on the Lock Screen, Home Screen, app animations, and app interfaces,” the electronic mail mentioned, and Prosser had allegedly recorded video from the name that he was sharing with different Apple leakers — at the least one in all whom mentioned they knew it was from Lipnik’s cellphone as a result of they acknowledged his house in the video.
“I am sure that Apple has the resources to further investigate,” the emailer wrote. The electronic mail was despatched three days earlier than Prosser printed his third video about iOS 19. That third video reveals many designs resembling what Apple finally shipped to the public.
Apple’s authentic grievance says that its subsequent investigation uncovered an elaborate alleged plot. After Prosser realized that Ramacciotti was a pal of Lipnik’s, was staying in his residence, and wanted cash, Prosser and Ramacciotti “jointly” schemed to entry Lipnik’s Apple-owned improvement iPhone, in accordance with the grievance. An audio message Ramacciotti despatched to Lipnik, which Lipnik supplied to Apple, claimed that Ramacciotti “used location tracking” to determine when Lipnik could be out of the home for some time. Ramacciotti allegedly someway obtained the passcode to the improvement iPhone and FaceTimed Prosser from the system. (Lipnik “had failed to properly secure” the iPhone in line with Apple’s insurance policies, the lawsuit says.)
The day the lawsuit was filed, Prosser posted on X that “this is not how the situation played out on my end,” and that he had the “receipts” to show it. “I did not ‘plot’ to access anyone’s phone,” he mentioned. In October, he instructed The Verge that he had been in “active communication” with the firm. He instructed The Verge in February that Apple’s grievance “seems like a dramatic heist movie.”
In a authorized response to the grievance filed in October, Ramacciotti defended himself by saying he didn’t understand how necessary the unreleased software program was given “Lipnik’s willingness to swipe through” the replace a number of weeks earlier. (Ramacciotti’s lawyer declined The Verge’s request to interview Ramacciotti. Lipnik didn’t reply to a request for remark.) Ramacciotti denied the existence of any grand plot or conspiracy, disputed a number of particulars of Apple’s grievance — together with whether or not he was monitoring Lipnik’s location — and mentioned that he “did not initiate communications with Prosser based on any promise by Prosser that he would specifically pay [Ramacciotti] for Apple information.” Ultimately, Ramacciotti mentioned in the submitting, Prosser supplied and paid Ramacciotti $650 “at some point after the FaceTime call.” He additionally mentioned he didn’t know Prosser was taking a video throughout their name.
A clerk entered a default in opposition to Prosser earlier that month after he repeatedly failed to answer Apple’s grievance. The firm mentioned in a submitting that Prosser had been served personally on July twenty ninth, 2025, and had missed an August nineteenth deadline. Apple will get to proceed its case in opposition to each Prosser and Ramacciotti, solely now Prosser can’t take part in his personal protection.
According to an April thirteenth submitting from Apple and Ramacciotti’s attorneys, Prosser “indicates he is retaining counsel and intends to move to set aside default.” After serving Prosser copies of subpoenas on February third, the submitting says Prosser supplied some supplies however has “failed to fully respond, or to respond at all, to certain requests.”
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Turbosquid
When The Verge reached out to Prosser in February over X DMs to debate the lawsuit, he declined to reply particular questions, saying it might “not be wise of me to do so.” However, he says that “it’s important to me that Apple gets the truth they’re seeking, and I’m working with them to ensure that happens.” Prosser tells The Verge he’s nonetheless in the US.
“We don’t comment on active litigation,” Apple spokesperson Jacqueline Roy tells The Verge.
The Prosser lawsuit isn’t the first time Apple has taken motion in opposition to leakers.
The firm sued the writer of the previously influential Apple-focused website Think Secret in January 2005 together with different “unnamed individuals,” alleging that it believed the website “stole Apple’s trade secrets” and that Think Secret “solicited information about unreleased Apple products from these individuals, who violated their confidentiality agreements with Apple.” Nearly three years later, the two sides settled. As a part of that settlement, Think Secret would now not be printed, and the website’s writer, Nick Ciarelli, mentioned he could be transferring ahead together with his faculty research. Think Secret’s web site now solely reveals a message that claims “The publication Think Secret is no longer in operation.”
Apple has additionally gone after workers for allegedly leaking info to journalists. After settling with former design architect Simon Lancaster, who Apple accused of offering commerce secrets and techniques to an “outside media correspondent,” Lancaster instructed The Verge that he shared info with The Information’s Wayne Ma.
Last yr, the firm settled with Andrew Aude, a former engineer who Apple alleged shared confidential info on his work-issued iPhone with workers at different tech corporations and “at least three national journalists,” in accordance with a replica of the lawsuit uploaded by MacRumors. “Leaking was not worth it,” Aude mentioned in a press release posted on X.
(Traditional information media publications will report on info that’s shared with them, however that info is freely given — it sometimes isn’t paid for. And when publications report on what is perhaps hacked or stolen info from a 3rd get together, they contemplate it very rigorously. The Verge, like most accountable publications, additionally has a strict ethics coverage.)
The most well-known Apple leak is nearly definitely the iPhone 4, which an Apple worker left on a barstool in California in March 2010. Gizmodo in the end paid $5,000 for the system, ran a collection of tales about it, and obtained a letter from Apple that mentioned it “constitutes a formal request that you return the device to Apple.” A Gizmodo worker’s home was finally raided by police, however the case itself was in the end dropped. At the time, San Mateo County District Attorney Steven Wagstaffe instructed CNET that investigators have been in search of proof that Gizmodo both participated in the theft of the cellphone or extorted the one that took it. “We didn’t think [the evidence] supported either,” Wagstaffe mentioned.
“Being sued by the corporate side of Apple doesn’t make me any less a fan of their legacy.”
Prosser tells The Verge that, “With the narrative Apple was originally given, I actually understand why they’d want to file a lawsuit.” But he provides, “I continue to make videos because I know the truth. I make my videos for my audience. Not for Apple. Being sued by the corporate side of Apple doesn’t make me any less a fan of their legacy.”
Since the lawsuit was filed, Front Page Tech has continued to publish. And it has continued to publish leaks about Apple merchandise, together with the as-yet-unconfirmed iPhone 18 Pro and a foldable iPhone. Those movies characteristic the type of flashy, macro-level system movies you see in virtually each Apple keynote. Prosser presents what he says are particulars about the telephones’ sizes, their most necessary options, and the make-up of the total iPhone lineup for 2026.
In neither case does Prosser current the identical stage of element as he did together with his iOS leaks, nor does he make as many references to how he obtained his info. Front Page Tech movies not too long ago have been a bit of extra cautious in that sense, and a bit of extra imprecise in their sourcing and particulars. But Prosser has been “leaking” the looming launch of a foldable iPhone in specific for years, and it appears his confidence hasn’t waned a bit.