9to5Mac Writer Paid Source for iPad Pro Information Extracted From Stolen iPhone Prototype ⇥ vice.com

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, Vice:

A reporter working for the Apple-focused website 9to5Mac paid a source around $500 in bitcoin in exchange for leaked data from the company in 2018, Motherboard has learned.

[…]

The article revealed that Apple would launch two iPads with only Wi-Fi and two with LTE connectivity, the type of processor the new iPad would have, details about the screen, and the fact that it would have a USB-C port instead of the traditional lightning port. [Andrey Shumeyko] told Motherboard that the article was based on data extracted from an iPhone XR prototype, which he said he obtained from a collector.

The story, published in October 2018, now reads “This post has been removed due to 9to5mac’s sourcing policies”. The iPad in question was announced less than a month after it was written. Was that scoop of, frankly, little value worth $500 and a marred ethical record?