Apple has sued OpenAI for the theft of trade secrets and breach of contract - and this isn't an ordinary legal squabble between two companies, but the first open clash between the maker of the iPhone and the company that wants to replace it.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Northern California, claims that OpenAI systematically hired people from Apple and induced them to carry confidential information with them. According to Apple, the scheme was run by OpenAI's top people, including hardware director Tang Tan - a man who spent 24 years at Apple, most recently as vice president for product design for the iPhone and Apple Watch.

The accusations are concrete and unpleasant: Tan allegedly used Apple's secret codenames for projects while recruiting staff, asked job candidates to bring Apple hardware components to the interview, and advised departing employees on how to bypass the company's security procedures. If true, this isn't the incidental movement of talent from one firm to another, but an organised hunt for someone else's secrets.

Why now? Because OpenAI, according to the rumours, is building its first hardware product - a device that will most likely collide directly with the iPhone. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo announced back in April that it's a phone that would lean on AI agents instead of apps. For Apple, whose core earnings have for decades come from the iPhone, that is one of the biggest threats yet.

The backstory makes the story even more interesting: last year OpenAI bought the startup io of Apple's former chief designer, Jony Ive, for 6.5 billion dollars, precisely to help it with its hardware ambitions. So OpenAI has already gathered one key mind from Apple legally, through a purchase. The question the court will settle is whether the rest of the talent arrived by the same route - or through the back door.