The Apple trade secrets lawsuit against leaker Jon Prosser just got more complicated. Co-defendant Michael Ramacciotti filed new court documents claiming he never conspired with Prosser and that the $650 payment came after their FaceTime call showing unreleased iOS 26 features, not as part of any pre-planned scheme. The filing directly challenges Apple's core conspiracy allegations while admitting to accessing the development iPhone.
The high-stakes legal battle over leaked iOS 26 features took an unexpected turn today as one of the defendants pushed back against Apple's conspiracy allegations. Michael Ramacciotti, who Apple sued earlier this year alongside prominent leaker Jon Prosser, filed a detailed response denying he participated in any coordinated scheme to steal trade secrets.
The case centers on allegations that Ramacciotti accessed a development iPhone belonging to former Apple employee Ethan Lipnik and showed unreleased iOS 26 features to Prosser during a FaceTime call. But Ramacciotti's version of events paints a very different picture than Apple's lawsuit suggests.
According to the new court filing, several weeks before the infamous FaceTime call, Lipnik had "sat down" with Ramacciotti and casually "swiped through" new iOS features on the development device. This casual interaction, Ramacciotti argues, led him to believe the information wasn't as sensitive as Apple claims.
"Ramacciotti did not fully appreciate the sensitivity of the development version of iOS on the Development iPhone" because of Lipnik's "willingness" to show him the features, his lawyers wrote. It's a defense that suggests the leak happened more through carelessness than criminal intent.
The $650 payment that's become a focal point of the case also gets new context in Ramacciotti's filing. While he admits Prosser did pay him that amount, he claims it was an unexpected gesture that came "at some point after the FaceTime call" rather than payment for services rendered.
"Ramacciotti did not initiate communications with Prosser based on any promise by Prosser that he would specifically pay" for the information, the filing states. "Ramacciotti wasn't expecting any payment from Prosser."
Even more striking, Ramacciotti claims he had no idea Prosser was recording their conversation. This detail could be crucial for Apple's case, since video evidence of the leaked features would be far more damaging than a simple phone call.
