Apple and the Scalability of Secrecy

RobotsDinner writes "Anil Dash has a thoughtful exploration of Apple's notorious devotion to secrecy, and argues that not only is there a limit to its feasibility, but that recent events show Apple has reached that limit already. 'If the ethical argument is unpersuasive, then focus on the long-term viability of your marketing and branding efforts, and realize that a technology company that is determined to prevent information from being spread is an organization at war with itself. Civil wars are expensive, have no winners, and incur lots of casualties.'"

Comments

Re:I bought an ipod touch today, it's going back.

[sam0737]

Openness where are you?

Android?

Re:I bought an ipod touch today, it's going back.

[Anonymous Coward]

I run Linux too. I just "activated" it with a friend's Windows machine. Then you can use it completely without iTunes, including the downloading of songs/apps. Don't give up so easily, it's a good product.

Re:Wow!

[anildash]

While I admittedly was stretching the technical definition of "scale" when titling my original post that's linked here, the word also has a meaning in non-technical contexts, within which this made sense. I could have gone with something like "Is Secrecy Tenable?" or something like that, but for better or worse we tend to find alliteration evocative in English. At any rate, if your only quibble is with one word from the 2000+ I wrote in the article, then I think I'm pleased that the rest of the message is resonating.