A teenager has said he hacked into Apple's main computer network because he wants to work for the company, a court has heard.

The 16-year-old from Melbourne in Australia - who can't be named because of his age - is said to have broken into the tech firm's mainframe a number of times last year.

He downloaded around 90 gigabytes of files, reportedly saving them in a folder named "hacky hack hack".

When it became aware of the hack Apple is said to have contacted the FBI, who then alerted Australian police.

During a search of the teen's home, police are said to have seized laptops matching those used to access Apple's systems.

In comments quoted by The Age newspaper, a prosecutor told the court: “A mobile phone and hard drive were also seized and the IP address [...] matched the intrusions into the organisation.
 
“The purpose was to connect remotely to the company’s internal systems.”

The court heard that the teenager's hacking plan had "worked flawlessly" until he was caught.

Following a guilty plea, the teenager is due to be sentenced next month.