Although Apple said in a recent court filing that Jon Prosser “still has not” replied to the company’s July lawsuit against him for allegedly stealing trade secrets, Prosser tells The Verge that he is in communication with Apple about the case.
“All I can tell you is that regardless of what is being reported, and regardless of what the court documents say — I have, in fact, been in active communications with Apple since the beginning stages of this case,” Prosser says. “The notion that I’m ignoring the case is incorrect. That’s all I am able to say.”
Last week, a clerk entered a default against Prosser, indicating that he hadn’t responded to the July lawsuit and allowing the case to go ahead. In its request for entry of default, Apple’s legal counsel says that the company personally served Prosser the lawsuit in July and notified him of the August 19th deadline to respond. He did not respond by that date, and “despite Apple’s multiple inquiries to Mr. Prosser about whether he would be responding to the Complaint, Mr. Prosser still has not done so,” according to the filing.
In its lawsuit, Apple alleged that Prosser and another defendant, Michael Ramacciotti, had a “coordinated scheme” to “steal Apple’s trade secrets, and profit from the theft.” According to the complaint, Ramacciotti broke into a development iPhone used by a friend that worked at Apple, called Prosser over video, and “demonstrated several features and applications” of iOS 19, which was officially named iOS 26. Ahead of the announcement of the software, Prosser published videos highlighting changes to things like the Camera app and showing elements of what would later be revealed as the Liquid Glass design language.
Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.