"I love making videos," said Brooke Amelia Peterson, in a youtube video post. It's not an ordinary post. It was a post-mortem of sorts.
And unfortnately, her love for making "little, innocent videos" led to her father getting fired from Apple.
Brooke's dad was one of the priveleged engineers who worked on the iPhone X, which is due for global release on November 3.
On Friday, October 27, Apple quashed concerns of muted demand for its iPhone X, saying pre-orders for the 10th anniversary phone were “off the charts”.
The latest iPhone, for the first time, includes new facial identification software to replace the fingerprint used on previous phones.
Apple observes a strict non-disclosure regime. While the tech company announced the product on September 12, employees are not free to share or talk about it before the global release.
Here's a copy of video in question, reposted by another Youtube subscriber.
Brooke took the video in a cafeteria inside the new Apple "campus" in California.
The hands-on video showed off her father's iPhone X.
"I made this video for fun because I love making Youtube videos," she said.
"I had no subscribers. I had no views. But I don't care. So I made this little, innocent video that was supposed to be just a fun memory of me and my family. That's all that making videos is to me."
But the original video became viral, even drawing some nasty comments and verbal abuses.
Brooke took down the video as soon as Apple had requested it. But many Apple watchers were quick to the draw.
Before long, Youtube channel AppleTechPro101, which has 14,000 subscribers, reposted the same video under the title: "First look at the iPhone X leaked by Apply employee."
Some, like CultofMac and 9to5Mac did the same thing, while others followed in no time.
For Brooke, it was a bit too little to prevent the clip from going viral, which led to seemingly endless reposts and commentary.
In the follow-up video, viewed more than 800,000 times as of Sunday, Brooke explained what happened and honoured her father with generous words.
Brooke tried to keep herself calm and collected, but showed signs of being distraught by the abuse hurled toward her and her father.
'Not angry at Apple'
She said she and her father understood the decision and weren't angry at Apple.
Online tech magazine Engadget wrote that the early iPhone X unit in question wasn't a regular one.
"As an employee device, it had sensitive information like codenames for unreleased products and staff-specific QR codes," it said.
"Combine that with Apple's general prohibition of recording video on campus (even at relatively open spaces like Caffè Macs) and this wasn't so much about maintaining the surprise as making sure that corporate secrets didn't get out. Apple certainly didn't want to send the message that recording pre-release devices was acceptable."
"All the same, it's hard not to sympathise — the engineer had poured his heart into the iPhone X, only to be let go the week before the handset reaches customers," the magazine said.
