"In Slack communications dated November 16, 2021, the Apple employees crafting the
warning screen for Project Michigan discussed how best to frame its language. (CX-206.)
Mr. Onak suggested the warning screen should include the language: “By continuing on the web,
you will leave the app and be taken to an external website” because “‘external website’ sounds
scary, so execs will love it.” (Id. at .2.) From Mr. Onak’s perspective, of the “execs” on the
project, Mr. Schiller was at the top. (Feb. 2025 Tr. 1340:4–6 (Onak).) One employee further
wrote, “to make your version even worse you could add the developer name rather than the app name.” (CX-206.4.) To that, another responded “ooh - keep going.” (Id.)
I could never imagine Apple employees doing it like this. I knew they had to have discussions about the scare screen, but come on! This is pure evil.
> I could never imagine Apple employees doing it like this.
Curious why your imagination is so limited here regarding a pretty standard human behavior pattern. Do you personally know Apple employees or is it more of a general respect for their products or ...?
I pretty much grew up on this site. 19yo-37yo. economics dropout from nowhere => waiter => startup => sold => 7 year tenure at google => back to a new startup), and I honestly was absolutely horribly over-the-top stunned at how people were just...normal? to put it nicely?...at Google.
You're absolutely right that it's an unwarranted assumption, yet simultaneously, I just always assumed higher class == higher morals. If anything it seemed to select for senior year of HS math class score and sociopathy.
Stuff I used to hear as grousing, from tired, defeated, adults, that couldn't hack it now ring as universal truths.
Are you serious? First off, stop using the term "high class" for immoral people. They are well beneath the whole morale chain and the fact they managed to get to your-definition-of-high-class means that lots of dirty tactics were used which are well beyond what a normal human is capable of
He was virtue signaling. It's sadly all too common these days. As if he or any human isn't capable of horrible atrocities given the right circumstances. Don't let him or anyone stifle your speech. Say what you need to say regardless of the sniping. You can't turn in your karma points for anything anyway, not even a little eraser.
When saurik sued Apple for antitrust reasons over Cydia[1] (which sadly ended up going nowhere), at some point a hearing was held where his lawyer accidentally read out something that was supposed to be protected/sealed. Apple's lawyer quickly interjected, but what saurik's attorney got to read before ended up in the official transcript[2], and it's straight up disgusting. From p.18:
"For example, something where -- they are talking about an iOS update that, quote, broke Cydia Impactor. Where they said, it feels too good to destroy someone's spirit. We did something else today that will kill him again with a little smiley emoticon. That, we can specifically talk about with respect to Cydia."
[1] For those not in the know, Cydia was the de-facto App Store for jailbroken iDevices, the prominent third-party marketplace before AltStore.
FWIW, the lawsuit went pretty far--all the way to an appeals court--but failed on what was ostensibly a statute of limitations issue that made very little sense and feels wrong :/. I still intend to write a giant article about it at some point, and probably do a long interview / lamentation about it on t3dotgg's YouTube channel... it just has felt so difficult to approach as the whole thing was so upsetting :(.
Hey! I should have phrased that differently, sorry! I actually followed the lawsuit as it was progressing, even listening to the oral arguments as soon as they were uploaded to the Ninth Circuit's YT channel. Such a shame...
This wasn't just a random employee either, it was “Rafael Onak, User Experience Writing Manager at Apple”.
If you think this is the only time they pull this kind of crap and then hide behind some privacy/design/UX bullshit argument, then I've got news for you...
How much does Apple select employees for loyalty when hiring? One-eyed competitive fanbois?
Companies do want smart machiavellian people that independently act in the interests of the company (archetypical C-suite executives).
Google has had a number of ethical employees damage Google from the inside.
A company can be damaged by smart motivated machiavellian employees using their skills against their own company.
I've noticed competitive gaming training/selecting people to win-at-all-costs. Presumably the C-suite is benefiting from the influx of people that understand manipulation and complexity.
I could never imagine Apple employees doing it like this. I knew they had to have discussions about the scare screen, but come on! This is pure evil.