[baybal2]

I regularly work for companies working for Apple, have a number of ex-coworkers who worked, or went to work to Apple.

Lose tongues are everywhere, and Apple can't seem to keep anything secret in its China RnD unit.

Shenzhen is a city of 17M on the paper, but very few people are working in Hardware now. It's a very small industry. I feel I know more than half of all companies on somebody's resume. Most of 30-40 years olds in the industry were already working for 10+ years.

Btw Most of AirPods RnD was done in China, not California.

I would also add that hardware unit side in Apple is said to be very conservative, and a mirror image of their software team. At least in China, they hold a lifelong negative score system, where -30 is you are out under any conditions, and 15 minutes late counts as -3. They also use USB sticks to move files around, and work on offline computers to prevent leaks. Also, WinXP everywhere.