Apple: Too Secret?
The New York Timeswrote a feature article about Apple and how they keep their ideas and future products a secret, and how it is almost an obsession.
My only guess to the NY Times writing an article like this is because Apple's secrecy is such a hot topic that is covered by hundreds and hundreds of blogs, like mine,MacRumors,TheAppleBlog, and just about everyone else who talks about Apple.
As if blogging wasn't already enough, the New York Times goes on to say that the secrecy of Apple is covered by other sites, and that they attract thousands of visitors every day. No kidding. If you ask me, this article was just a cheap shot to get extra traffic to the NY Times website, because, this article has already been on MacRumors and other Apple "secrecy" sites, such as mine, and is likely to get tons of people to go over and read it.
Likewise, I thought I would give the folks at the NY Times a little bit of trouble.
Appleis one of the world’s coolest companies. But there is one cool-company trend it has rejected: chatting with the world through blogs and dropping tidbits of information about its inner workings.
Is there a list of "cool-company" trends I could look at? As far as I'm concerned there aren't too many "cool-companies" that go out and share their future plans with blogs, and even if there are, information gets out of Apple all the time, how else would the rumor sites continue to run? Employees at Apple talk every once and a while.
Employees have been fired for leaking news tidbits to outsiders, and the company (Apple) has been known to spread disinformation about product plans to its own workers.
Who says people from other companies haven't been fired for leaking information? It happens at every company. As for disinformation to it's own workers, that's actually a pretty smart idea, if they want to prevent their information from getting out, then they lie about it, it's common sense if you want to be secret.
-Charles Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at theUniversity of Delaware. “For a technology company that views itself as innovative, it’s a little odd that they are getting a reputation for lack of transparency.”
How is it odd? If anything, being secretive about you're company is very healthy for it. By being secretive, you gather more interest towards your company, and are likely to have a more successful launch of you're product, as Apple has proved with it's past iPhones and the current one.
This is exactly why I don't like normal news organizations reporting on Apple and technology.
Image: The New York Times
JD Remington Jun 23, 2009 at 3:07 PM in Apple tagged Obsession, Phil Schiller, Rumors, Secrecy, Steve Jobs 
