Apple has reportedly fired an engineer after his daughter’s iPhone X hands-on video went viral on YouTube.
Brooke Amelia Peterson last week published a vlog of a trip to see her parents in San Jose, including visiting her father at the Apple Campus.
It is during this meeting that Peterson is given access to her father’s iPhone X and includes a quick hands-on of the unreleased device in her video.
Once spotted, it was quickly picked up by a range of tech sites, and spread rapidly on YouTube.
In the wake of the attention, Peterson posted a second video in which she claimed her father had been dismissed because of the video, which violated a company rule by letting her film the handset.
In it, she said her father had been a “privileged engineer who had worked on the iPhone X”, and did not expect the fallout from the video because of the range of hands-on videos posted online since Apple announced the device in September.
“I have no idea how my video got so much attention considering how many other iPhone X videos there are out from other YouTubers”, she said.
She added that Apple had asked her to remove the video – which she agreed to – and said her dad “takes full responsibility”, allowing the phone to be filmed.
Eagle-eyed watchers have already noted that one calendar notification that appears on-screen during Peterson’s demo is marked as “restricted”.
The tech firm is also strict about filming on its Cupertino campus.
Peterson said Apple had let her father go in the wake of the incident, a decision Peterson said she and her family understood.
“At the end of the day, when you work for Apple it doesn’t matter how good of a person you are, if you break a rule they just have no tolerance. They had to do what they had to do. I’m not mad at Apple.
“Rules are in place for the happiness and safety of workers, and my dad take absolutely fully responsibility for the one rule that he broke.”
The technology giant has not commented on the incident, but it is not the first time such an incident has been reported. Back in 2005 a Microsoft employee was let go after his stepson posted photos of the Xbox 360 online before the console was launched.
The iPhone X is due to go on sale in the UK on Friday, and is the first iPhone to remove the Home button, and feature facial recognition software, known as Face ID.
