Author 9to5Mac paid for information about unannounced iPad Pro

An author of the site 9to5Mac has paid a source in bitcoin for information about the then-unannounced 2018 iPad Pro. That source later became a double agent for Apple by passing information about the market of leaked information and firmware to Apple.

The author, Guilherme Rambo, paid an amount equivalent to $500 in bitcoin at the time, Motherboard reports. The site removed the article because 9to5Mac, like many other media, has a policy of not paying for information. According to the author, it is the only time he paid for information. Rambo has not been writing such articles for the site since 2019. The information came from the firmware of a prototype iPhone XR, which is believed to have been stolen.

The source is now coming out with the story after a year of passing information to Apple. He didn’t provide any information to Apple at the time of 9to5Mac’s iPad Pro article. This includes the people who distributed the early build of iOS 14 last year. That build also made it to some media outlets. The source, who calls himself a member of a loose group called Apple Internal, spent years in groups that traded prototype hardware and software from Apple. He hoped to get money from Apple in exchange for the information, but that didn’t happen.