Between last year’s arterial spray of unreleased Apple products leaking in Vietnam and the surplus of presciently iPad 2 cases popping up in Asia months before Apple unveiled the second-gen tablet, it’s been pretty clear for awhile that Foxconn needed to get its house in order. They had some pretty bad leaks, and given Apple’s notorious secrecy concerning future products, heads were bound to roll.
Now they have. Digitimes is reporting that three Foxconn employees have been arrested for leaking the iPad 2 design weeks (editor’s not: weeks? Try months) before apple’s official announcement.
This all happened back on December 26th, 2010, so we’re just hearing about it, but presumably, this will all send a strong message to Foxconn employees that loose lips sink ships. Given how low the average Foxconn worker’s salary is, though, is it really realistic to believe that even harsh punishments will stop the temptation to pick up some extra yuan by leaking specs to third-parties interested in getting a head start on their accessorizing competition?
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
19 responses to “Three Foxconn Employees Were Arrested For Leaking iPad 2 Design”
Yen? It’s Renminbi (or Yaun) in China and ??ng in Vietnam…
Sorry for the type: Yuan
sucks for them…and yet we cant arrest AIG, BofA, wall st banksters?
“three Foxconn employees have been arrested “
They where then promptly executed and their organs sold …
I remember seeing articles on all the tech blogs during CES about “ipad 2 prototypes” that were being displayed by case manufacturers as well, in JANUARY. (http://goo.gl/tQjRR) They ended up being almost identical to the released product, except for the design of the speaker grille.
Unfortunately, they will be executed…..
Dude that’s so ignorant
I say good for those employees and I hope they all made a ton of cash at the tech whores expense. Anything that causes disruption in Terri Gou’s sweatshop factories is ace in my book. Here’s a thought how to stop future product leaks, hey Gou try paying your employees a decent wage you fucking cheap bitch.
Dude…. You might want to study up on Chinese human rights abuses …
Don’t have to I already know far to well what can happen to people in China. That’s why I think people who treat it as a joke are ignorant. I stand by my comment.
Editor’s not? Try editor’s note.