Apple’s Hunting for Stolen Vision Pro Blueprints… And Snap’s New Hire Is Their Prime Suspect

Apple’s legal team is probably not getting a full 8 hours of sleep right now. They recently survived a $2 billion fine in the EU over App Store favoritism, fought off multiple U.S. antitrust investigations, and wrapped up a nasty trade secrets case against chip startup Rivos… one involving ex-Apple engineers allegedly leaving with M-series chip secrets tucked under their hoodies (oopsies, how did that get in there?).

And now, Apple’s legal team has turned its gaze to… Snap. Well, not Snap directly… but one of their suspicious new hires, a former Vision Pro engineer named Di Liu. And hoo boy, the filing makes some crazy accusations.

Liu, a senior design engineer who worked on the Vision Pro headset from 2017 to 2024, allegedly pulled the classic “it’s not you, it’s me” move when he quit Apple, citing “health reasons” and a desire to spend more time with family. Heartwarming stuff, right? Yeah… except Apple says he was actually packing his digital suitcase with thousands of confidential documents and uploading them to his personal cloud while no one was looking. Allegedly, this all went down during his final two weeks… that customary Apple grace period where employees usually wrap up projects and don’t copy-paste the entire company’s supply chain roadmap.

According to the lawsuit filed June 24 in Santa Clara County, Liu individually selected folders (including ones with project codenames and unreleased Vision Pro features), reorganized them, renamed them, and then deleted the local files from his work laptop in a tidy little cover-up.

And then, what do you know? He shows up at Snap (the one that also happens to make AR glasses). Liu reportedly took a “substantially similar” job as a product design engineer. Apple didn’t find this out until after the download party. So now Apple’s lining up those digital breadcrumbs like Alex Jones in a tinfoil hat, convinced there’s a Deep State AR conspiracy… and every arrow points right at Snap.

Interestingly enough, Apple is not suing Snap (yet), but in the filing they heavily imply that Liu’s new gig might give him every incentive to whip out those “borrowed” blueprints and put them to work. In Apple’s words: “The overlap between Apple’s Proprietary Information that Mr. Liu retained and Snap’s AR products suggests that Mr. Liu intends to use Apple’s Proprietary Information at Snap.” Snap, for what it’s worth, says they’ve reviewed the claims and have “no reason to believe” Liu’s work there has anything to do with the stuff Apple’s mad about. (Which, to be fair, is exactly what you’d say if someone just accused your new hire of packing a Vision Pro starter kit in his backpack.) Who knows, maybe he’s just really passionate about cloud storage?

Apple, as you’d expect from the company that redacts entire product names from internal memos, is furious. They’re seeking damages, a court order to let forensic experts inspect Liu’s devices, and basically want to go full CSI on this guy’s Dropbox.

Funny enough, this isn’t some isolated incident. Apple has made suing former employees its own side hustle lately. In the past few years, they’ve gone after leakers, defectors, and even startup founders poaching Apple chip talent. They dropped a case against one guy after he apologized. Another one ended up in federal prison. So yeah, if you're thinking of joining Apple, here's a free tip: don’t mess with the files. Their lawyers are less Ted Lasso, more John Wick.

I’m no rocket scientist, but if Snap’s next pair of AR glasses just happen to look like a budget Vision Pro… let’s just say this lawsuit might wrap itself up real fast.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Apple and Snap as mentioned in the article.