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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.'"
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.
I happen to work in the game industry - there is a lot of secrecy in our industry too, by absolute necessity. Most games would get crucified if they got leaked to the press or the public too early in the dev cycle. Most people are not used to filling in the blanks - ignoring the rough edges, or even disregarding the aspects of an early product that just plain suck. That's all part of the development process, but consumers are used to seeing just the slick, final product (well, even that's not guaranteed nowadays unfortunately).
There's also some other very good reasons not to go blathering on about features that haven't even been developed yet: those features might get cut for budgetary, creative, or technical reasons, and then you look like an ass for not delivering on what you promised.
I'm not defending Apple's business practices necessarily, but I'm just saying that throwing your doors open to the press and public isn't the panacea that this guys is making it out to be.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
The article seems kind of stupid. For example, he dismisses the motive of withholding information from competitors who might want to create rush knock-offs on the grounds that "no amount of secrecy will stop it." This is a like arguing that nobody should lock their doors, because houses get burgled anyway, and no amount of locks will stop it. He argues that copying is "a normal part of the business cycle," begging the question of whether it is beneficial to the company that is copied--and ignores the fact that trade secrets are also a normal part of business. He implies that Apple might somehow be culpable in the suicide of an employee, even though there is no evidence whatsoever that Apple drove him to suicide, and the apparent motive (to the extent that anything is known)--failing in one's responsibility--can be and has been a motive for suicide in many contexts that do not necessarily involve secrecy.
Even if there are some valid grounds for criticizing Apple's policies (and it is hard to defend some of their litigious actions), the obvious bias behind such obviously fallacious arguments undermines the case
Anil,
When I started working at Apple, a colleague in product marketing explained to me exactly what the secrecy was worth to the company, in dollar terms.
Apple got the cover of time magazine when the iMac G4 came out. Apple got that coverage, because they had something to offer to Time, and they had it to offer because of the diligence with which they maintained secrecy. You can't buy Time's front cover as an ad placement. If you could, it's easily worth tens of millions of dollars. Your claim that Apple doesn't get free press due to the secrecy is complete nonsense.
The rest of your list is basically pulled out of your ass.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I work at Apple and I know exactly how scalable our system of secrecy is.
:D
Thing is, I can't tell you about it since it is, itself, a secret. Sorry!