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How does Apple keep things Soooo Secretive?

akdj

akdj

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 10, 2008
1,191
91
62.88°N/-151.28°W
With a recent MB/MBP update, Nahelm not ready yet (for the Pros), it seems the iMac is the MOST anticipated update, to a lesser extent the Mini and 17" MBP...

HOW in the World does Apple keep such great secrets? With ALL of the pieces and parts....any outsourcing, etc....how is there not a bigger leak than the limited speculation we have on this board...8 hours before these new products drop?

What other company has EVER been able to do this? Especially with such eager anticipation from the frothing, drooling fan-base....and the New Recruits? Folks with the "itch to switch" from Windows with their first Macs.

Crazy! Especially for a publicly traded company....there are so few leaks of "real" information. Again, from my first sentence....we can almost use deductive reasoning to figure out which products will get updates, speed bumps, or full on make overs....but "real" info; like processors (Core 2 duo, Quad, i7), Display/LED, Blu-Ray....or even more-so....The next Ipod/Iphone/iMac invention that we have NEVER even DREAMED of on Macrumors. I will never forget when I bought my first Mac. I posted on Apple's forum a "speculation" thread....not even sure what I said, just wondering when something was coming or would be adopted by the platform. Before I got a single response, my thread was shut down because of "future product speculation!" I couldn't believe it....on the Creator's Creator website....I couldn't speculate. I immediately bumped into Macrumors after a quick google search. Ever since then...>Tuesdays are like Christmas! Watching the incessant speculation on this board and how rarely any one person gets it right.

Sorry for the ramble....Just can't believe that there aren't more leaks from the HQ's of our beloved platform. Apple's secrecy rivals that of the NSA, CIA, etc.

...Lookin forward to tomorrow:)

J
 
Simple, if you leak information and they find out, you get taken to a replica of the London Dungeons under Apple HQ in Cupertino, where you will be horribly and slowly tortured to death, while listening to mmmm-bop on repeat on your choice of iPod.

:)
 
Financial penalties for squealing like a pig, ATI dropped the ball and Steve did a last minute change yanking their contract.

They typically do their best to put smaller companies into dire financial straights with their lawyers, and when all else fails walk down to the DA to file a criminal complaint.

---

all else fails, buy them out, hire all their staff and have them sign agreements that make speaking again very hurtful.
 
I knew there was a place like that! Just knew it:)

Hilarious! Like there are magic elves cranking out new products....never to see our world!!! For fear those of us ferocious speculators will torture the poor little elves....to let us know whether or not Nahelm is ready YET!!!! Or WHY they took our FW 400 away!

Poor little dude(ette)s. Listening to Hanson all day

"Non disclosure agreements and the ability to release what they want to whom they want to"

LOL...I have worked in Radio and Entertainment for 19 years. Non diclosure, no compete, and No, don't talk about this and That crap has NEVER worked in my line of work! Not when more then one and a half people know about it, Especially Lawyers!!! They are the worst!~ Give them $50 and they'll squeal like a stuck pig:) Two of my three brothers are lawyers, HA!

No, I realize what a pain staking process they must go through to protect their assets with vendors, etc. Just seems like a like would be impossible to protect with that many people involved.

Maybe it's not the kind of information people (press) will pay for yet, therefore no reason for employees and vendors to talk....

J
 
NDA is worthless, its just text. Anyone willing will talk if they want to. If I knew anything I'd have clicked on the "Submit your Tips" link as soon as I could.
 
akdj said:
LOL...I have worked in Radio and Entertainment for 19 years. Non diclosure, no compete, and No, don't talk about this and That crap has NEVER worked in my line of work! Not when more then one and a half people know about it, Especially Lawyers!!! They are the worst!~ Give them $50 and they'll squeal like a stuck pig:) Two of my three brothers are lawyers, HA!
J
Click to expand...

That only makes you untrustworthy. Nothing to be proud of.
 
Simple answer: People like to have a job. People like to know that they will have a job in the future.

Longer answer: This is your future if you leak: "So, it says here that your last employer, Apple, terminated you. Why was that?"

"I leaked industry secrets and intellectual property to the public."

"I see. Get out of my office. Good luck ever getting a job again."
 
Tallest Skil said:
Simple answer: People like to have a job. People like to know that they will have a job in the future.

Longer answer: This is your future if you leak: "So, it says here that your last employer, Apple, terminated you. Why was that?"

"I leaked industry secrets and intellectual property to the public."

"I see. Get out of my office. Good luck ever getting a job again."
Click to expand...

Perhaps a job in politics would be in order.
 
Fuchal said:
Perhaps a job in politics would be in order.
Click to expand...

Even less likely. Many jobs in politics require access to information that is not available to the general public. Having someone who's already outed corporate secrets on staff would be a recipe for disaster, not to mention I would think that it would seriously impair your chances at getting any sort of government clearances.
 
Apple does a pretty good job with secrets.

Microsoft likes to blab about their products years before they come out. My understanding is that businesses like that because they know the roadmap so they can plan accordingly.

The problem is they miss delivery dates and / or consumers wait on purchasing decisions for the next thing. Businesses wait on things like service packs before they get in bed with Microsoft next thing.
 
It appears they succeeded in keeping everything secret because they had nothing noteworthy to announce this time.
 
Companies like Microsoft has sooooo many partner companies to deal with and they supply one component of a PC ... Apple controls more of the pie so they don't have to keep the myriad of PC manufacturers in the loop 2 years in advance so they can start adapting..
 
I guess we found out how they kept the new iMac and Mac Mini secrets so well this year...
 
Steve does all the work. The other employees just party it up and make Steve slave away developing Apple products...Why do you think he's lost so much weight?


*i know about his hormone problemm
 
So for instance, someone who works for Apple and knows everything about new Macs; why wouldn't they just use the net to anonimously post information about that? If one takes good care of concealing the identity, it is VERY hard to track down that person. Or not?

-J
 
St0rMl0rD said:
So for instance, someone who works for Apple and knows everything about new Macs; why wouldn't they just use the net to anonimously post information about that? If one takes good care of concealing the identity, it is VERY hard to track down that person. Or not?

-J
Click to expand...
Not.

Any and all traffic out of Apple will be logged (just like any other business). Apple will likely take anyone (site owner) to court that has published a leak to ascertain their source from web server logs (if the leak was serious enough to really pursue).

You could get away with it, but you'd stand a fair chance of being busted. If you're privy to the kind of info anyone would care about leaking, you probably don't want to risk your well paid job.
 
edesignuk said:
Not.

Any and all traffic out of Apple will be logged (just like any other business). Apple will likely take anyone (site owner) to court that has published a leak to ascertain their source from web server logs (if the leak was serious enough to really pursue).

You could get away with it, but you'd stand a fair chance of being busted. If you're privy to the kind of info anyone would care about leaking, you probably don't want to risk your well paid job.
Click to expand...

Yeah but why report directly from Apple? One could just go to a public www spot or something and post information from there. Do it under alias, and how are they gonna get you?

-J
 
St0rMl0rD said:
Yeah but why report directly from Apple? One could just go to a public www spot or something and post information from there. Do it under alias, and how are they gonna get you?

-J
Click to expand...
I covered that.
Apple will likely take anyone (site owner) to court that has published a leak to ascertain their source from web server logs (if the leak was serious enough to really pursue).
Click to expand...
 
Apple is not secretive. The NSA/FBI/Homeland Security is. Apple just likes to have more control over how they release their relatively very few items that they do have. Dell or some giant like that just puts out stuff all the time, far too much, and not much of it is easy to remember.

If you go through the posts here over the years, you can get a fairly good idea what Apple is going to do next most of the time. Macrumors pretty much got sources for the Cube, iPod, iPhone, and leaks of software just about every single time.

Only a couple of times looking here for 8 1/2 years has Apple completely surprised me, like with MBA, iLife, server stuff, and a couple of other things I wouldn't normally really pay that much attention to.

Many of their past keynotes would highlight their new OS months in advance.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Simple answer: People like to have a job. People like to know that they will have a job in the future.

Longer answer: This is your future if you leak: "So, it says here that your last employer, Apple, terminated you. Why was that?"

"I leaked industry secrets and intellectual property to the public."

"I see. Get out of my office. Good luck ever getting a job again."
Click to expand...

That is an honest trade-secret leaker.
 
mags631 said:
That is an honest trade-secret leaker.
Click to expand...

It's either be honest in your interview and not get the job or lie in your interview and have Apple tell them directly when the company calls them to ask about your termination and not get the job.

What, you think that companies don't talk to one another when they hire former employees?
 
BornAgainMac said:
Microsoft likes to blab about their products years before they come out.
Click to expand...

And it has really, really hurt them, and turned them into a much smaller company with products you can't find anywhere ;)

Anyway, whether a company is low key like Apple, or is more aggressive like Microsoft, in the end my dollar goes to a product if I find it useful. There is plenty of stuff out there now that I have not learned about.

And basically, I really don't care about what either company does next week, next month, next year.

Apple rarely lets me down, so I don't have to speculate as to what they are up to next. If you want an iPod, iPhone, or Mac, get it now, they are great products. Anyone who doesn't think so wouldn't likely join this site.

Even though it's called Macrumors, to me this site is about community more than being able to find out in advance what Apple is up to. And even if I found out in advance what they are going to put out, 97.9% percent of the computer market for home and business simply don't care.

If Apple's computer market share was 1/10 of 1% percent, I would still use it. I even use stuff on my Mac that I suspect very few people use a lot, like TextEdit, which I use for a lot of things. I have MS Word, but rarely use it outside of online school.
 
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