Apple has launched a legal assault against one of its former engineers, Di Liu, accusing him of stealing confidential information related to the development of the Vision Pro headset and lying about his next career move. Liu, who worked at Apple for seven years and became a senior product design engineer, told the company he was leaving to prioritize his health and spend more time with his family. 
But according to Apple, that story was a smokescreen.
As it turns out, Liu had already accepted a job at Snap Inc.-the company behind Snapchat and the AR glasses known as Spectacles-two weeks before resigning from Apple. This critical detail was allegedly withheld from Apple, enabling Liu to continue working for two weeks and maintain access to sensitive files during his notice period.
The lawsuit, now public, claims that just three days before his final day, Liu downloaded thousands of Apple’s internal documents and uploaded them to his personal cloud storage. These files reportedly contain proprietary data on product design, quality assurance, and Apple’s supply chain strategies.
Liu had been part of the R&D team behind the Vision Pro, Apple’s spatial computing headset that combines augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies. With Snap also invested in AR via its Spectacles hardware, Apple suggests Liu’s new role is alarmingly similar to his previous one-raising red flags about potential misuse of confidential information.
Apple alleges that logs from Liu’s company-issued laptop show deliberate actions, including selecting, renaming, and reorganizing files before transferring them to his cloud account. These digital breadcrumbs form a key part of the lawsuit, which demands that Liu return the stolen materials, hand over his electronic devices for inspection, and face financial penalties for breaching his confidentiality agreement.
Snap Inc. has responded by stating it has reviewed the claims and found no evidence connecting Liu’s actions to his role at the company. Notably, Snap itself is not being sued or accused of any wrongdoing in the legal filing.