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How Apple Orchestrates Controlled Leaks, and Why
Lanxon writes "'I was a Senior Marketing Manager at Apple and I was instructed to do some controlled leaks,' confesses John Martellaro. Monday's article at the Wall Street Journal, which provided confirmation of an Apple tablet device, had all the earmarks of a controlled leak. Here's how Apple does it. Often Apple has a need to let information out, unofficially. The company has been doing that for years, and it helps preserve Apple's consistent, official reputation for never talking about unreleased products. The way it works is that a senior exec will come in and say, 'We need to release this specific information. John, do you have a trusted friend at a major outlet? If so, call him/her and have a conversation. Idly mention this information and suggest that if it were published, that would be nice. No e-mails!'"
There's talk of Microsoft slate tablet kicking about now too : http://www.neowin.net/news/live/10/01/06/microsoft-set-to-unveil-slate-tablet-pc-at-ces
Except that they shut Think Secret down, remember?
Sure, it's good business sense to get consumer/reviewer reaction before investing all the money required to develop a product. But again, this has been standard practice among corporations and politicians for a while.
The iPhone was announced on January 9, 2007. It went on sale on June 29, 2007.
And on the day it was announced, Steve apologized for this unusual early disclosure and explained why they did it. Of course you remember, don't you? After all, you could remember the date (I couldn't).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
They actually said in that case that they were announcing early because they had to file papers with the FCC, which would essentially make the product public knowledge anyway.
The other time that they frequently announce products ahead of release is OS upgrades, but that's usually done around the time they're starting to release developer builds of the OS.