UK Edition
Former Apple engineer claims tech giant was 'toxic' after Jobs death
A former Apple engineer has claimed that the tech giant suffered a breakdown in morale and was "contentious and toxic" following the death of former chief executive Steve Jobs.
Daniel Eastman has accused Apple of failing its engineers as part of a legal claim in California against his former employer. It states that it failed to acknowledge him as the inventor of the technology behind the "Find my iPhone" application in their patent filings.
The application, which allows users to locate their lost iOS devices remotely, was first released in 2010. Mr Eastman claims that Apple destroyed his personal reputation by not including him in six patents for his inventions and is suing for $326,400 in damages plus legal fees.
Mr Eastman was an employee at Apple between 2009 and 2015, the court documents state, and initially worked with Mr Jobs in designing a low-cost computer capable of running the OS X operating system aimed at the education sector.
Following Mr Jobs' death, Mr Eastman claims the culture of "untested" updates for every product caused "undue strain".
"This destroyed moral and caused many of the remaining engineers who made a difference to leave after 2011," the claim said.
"Apple evolved from an honest company into a rampant and regular abuser of contract, discrimination and employment law; in addition to regularly acting without good faith in business dealings."
"Cronyism" and a dedicated effort to ignore quality issues in current and future products "became the most important projects to perpetuate the goal of ignoring the law and minimising tax", he alleged.
Apple declined to comment.
Mr Eastman claimed that Apple was hiring managers with little technical experience to oversee the remaining engineers, who started to "disappear suddenly without warning" because of financial and pay reasons.
"No corporate responsibility exists at Apple since Mr Jobs' death. There is no accountability, with attempts at doing the right thing met with swift retaliation," the court documents stated.
His legal claim, which was filed in August 2018 and first reported by US publication The Mercury News, also states that he is suing Apple over wrongful termination of employment and discrimination.