Today in Apple history: iPad 2 leak lands insiders in prison

June 15, 2011: Chinese authorities sentence three people to prison for leaking information about the iPad 2 prior to its release.

The Foxconn R&D employees receive sentences ranging from one year to 18 months. They also must pay fines between $4,500 and $23,000. If you ever wonder why more Apple products don’t leak prior to release, this might help explain why!

iPad leak leads to jail time

The iPad 2 leak came shortly after Apple’s most high-profile hardware spoiler of all time. In that 2010 incident, an Apple engineer lost a disguised iPhone 4 prototype in a Silicon Valley bar. Tech website Gizmodo bought the iPhone 4 prototype for $5,000 from the person who found it. Then, Gizmodo published a series of scoops about the highly anticipated device that led to a police raid on a Gizmodo editor’s home.

The media firestorm around these incidents fueled an explosive public debate over the lengths Apple would go to in its effort to stop leaks.

The iPad 2 leak further illustrated just how valuable Apple’s product secrets had become in an era when every blurry photo could ignite a global tech frenzy. In that case, authorities arrested the three Foxconn employees the previous December, charging them with leaking the design of the iPad 2 to an accessory manufacturer prior to the device’s launch.

The company, Shenzhen MacTop Electronics, paid the leakers — and used the information to begin cranking out iPad 2 cases early, giving it a head start on rivals.

As revealed in the court case, Shenzhen MacTop, a maker of Apple-compatible accessories established in 2004, offered the employees 20,000 yuan, or around $3,000, alongside discounts on MacTop products. In return, the employees gave them digital images of the iPad 2.

After their arrests, the employees faced charges of violating Foxconn’s and Apple’s trade secrets. Apple released the second-gen iPad on March 11, 2011, around three months after the Foxconn employees’ arrests.

Apple thinks secret

A decade and a half after the infamous iPad 2 leak, Apple hardware details still become public ahead of product releases. (Maybe you’ve heard about the rumored folding iPhone and touchscreen MacBook Pro reportedly coming later this year.)

That’s unsurprising when you consider how many thousands of people work in the manufacturing process, many at low wages. In fact, what’s remarkable is that more pictures don’t show up online ahead of a typical Apple hardware launch.

Although Apple CEO Tim Cook has been a bit more open about the company’s plans than his predecessor Steve Jobs ever was, Cupertino continues to guard its upcoming hardware secrets ferociously. Over the years, it has taken numerous steps to improve secrecy among its suppliers — including hiring teams of undercover security officers, slapping manufacturers with multimillion-dollar fines if they don’t do enough to protect Apple’s plans, and suing rumor sites out of existence.

In 2018, the company warned its employees about the serious consequences of leaks — in a memo that promptly leaked.

Today, Apple’s war on leaks and rumors continues. With billions of dollars riding on successful product launches, you can’t blame Apple for being cautious.