How Apple Does Controlled Leaks | Hacker News Reader

How Apple Does Controlled Leaks

macobserver.com

116 pointsprat30 comments

What's more interesting to me is how they avoid unintended leaks. I've been told of a keycard system that knows if two different people are working on different components of a product, and won't let them into a particular room with each other at the same time, lest they put 2 and 2 together...like, for example, if one person is working on a touch screen and another is working with cell phone transmitters.

I spent five years at Apple, worked on a few secret projects, and never heard of this system. How could you make sure they didn't meet in the elevator or cafeteria?

There is an impressive infrastructure of areas restricted by keycards though.

I'm glad to get another source on this. The other one could have been having some fun yanking my chain.

This has all the hallmarks of being a perfect bogus rumor. Apple is notoriously secretive so it can't be denied, no matter how stupid the idea would be in practice. It's also outlandishly juicy which means makes people want to tell it.

That's a very strange/sad way of working. At work, I have always known the end product toward which I am building. I can't imagine working with so many firewalls.

OTOH given Apple's track record, employees can probably just tell themselves, "Whatever I'm working on, someone smarter than me is overseeing it. I'm sure it will be awesome."

That's got to be more encouraging than knowing exactly what you're working on and despairing as a result.

If being treated like a child works for you, that's great. It doesn't for me.

If those rumours are true, Apple must be an incredibly stifling and frustrating place to work for smart, creative people.

  Apple must be an incredibly stifling and frustrating place to work for smart, 
  creative people.

I agree. And yet, they keep producing all this innovative stuff. It's a paradox, to me.

Similarly, being treated like a child must be incredibly stifling and frustrating for smart, creative children.

I agree with you. I'm just saying it could be worse.

Presumably people who work at Apple are skilled enough to have lots of options and stay because they're happy with the way the company is run.

I would bet then either the rumors are not true or it's more nuanced than we know. Apple seems to produce good software quickly. How would that be possible with a company full of miserable developers? We don't hear much, or anything, about big employee churn rates at Apple either.

It depends how often it happens. If it's only for a small portion of employees for a small percentage of the time - say, several months every five years, when your team is involved in the launch of a brand new product line - then it would be a lot more bearable than if it were a constant requirement for everybody.

Reminds me of the old analogy of the blind men and the elephant.

It is interesting that people would accept such working conditions voluntarily.

Reminds me of the movie 'the cube'.

Yes, exactly! (I love that movie) I had a similar reaction when I first heard this, but I could also see myself enjoying working on a mobile multitouch interface prototype circa 2005 without necessarily knowing that it would be used in a phone. I'm sure there are some pretty cool upsides.

For those who missed it (I was wondering why people were now saying March):

"Apple to Ship Tablet Device in March"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870358090457463...

It's behind a subscription wall. Do you know what the suggested pricepoint is?

Apple's putting its toes in the water with a $1,000 price tag.

My guess is that the $1,000 leak is just conditioning the marketplace. They'll get a better reaction when they announce it at $799, for example ("Wow, cheaper than I thought.") than they might have previously ("I could get a couple of netbooks for that.")

Ouch... That's about $400 more than I'd probably be willing to pay for a decent tablet. I wonder what kind of use-cases they're envisioning.

That's about $400 more

You could also view it as a ~$100 discount on the Mac OS X tax, if it's only $400 more than equivalent Windows or Linux tablets. Apple laptops tend to be about $500 more than similarly equipped laptops from other manufacturers (my last Dell was $626 cheaper than an almost identically equipped MacBook Pro).

Of course, I don't know what Windows and Linux-based tablets are actually going to cost, so the Mac OS X tax may be more or less on tablets. I guess we'll see when the tablets start hitting the market in reasonable numbers.

I'm not entirely sure I see the use case for a tablet at any price...though I have a netbook, and like it, and have a Kindle, and like it (but the insane battery life is a primary factor for the Kindle; a tablet won't be able to come close). So, I may figure out uses for a tablet when they're more common.

I find that some people have an Aspergers-like view on laptops. If two laptops have the same processor, HD size and RAM, then they're identical.

But of course there are other important specs like the materials used in the construction. Alluminium is more expensive than plastic and far stronger and sturdier. A thinner laptop is also much more expensive. It requires thinner DVD drives and fans. Motherboard components need to be shrunk. Need to use smaller, more expensive capacitors. A smaller, more dense battery with the same capacity. The same core temperature with a much smaller thermal envelope. Minimalist design. None of this is trivial and adds significantly to the cost.

It's OK.

I agree that there is a premium placed on mac products, but I would guess you are overstating it. I'd be willing to bet that the difference in price lies in the RAM. Apple uses DDR3 while most other manufacturers use DDR2. If you look on Newegg, you will see that there is a substantial price difference in the two (at least at my last check).

Google the URL and then click through from google.

Here it is:

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:laKVHyAwjckJ:online.wsj....

This article shouldn't be surprising to anyone with their ear to the ground for Apple news, but it certainly was nice to read from the former Senior Marketing Manager for Apple.

A small slightly pedantic point, but that should be 'a Senior Marketing Manager' rather than 'the Senior Marketing Manager'.

The Senior Marketing Manager is, I imagine, a very important person. A Senior Marketing Manager is, well, a manager in the marketing department who is in some sense 'Senior'.

sigh... small pedantic point?

Yup. Doesn't surprise me at all. I always suspected this.

Controlled leaks (and fake rumors?) achieve the following, also:

- builds suspense, makes fanboys drool in anticipation - the media of course rides these waves because rumors are exciting, hopefully novel... this ensures that Apple is in the news daily (it gets tiresome for those of us who care about truly, actionable news) and thus boosts their brand recognition - a secret/something hard to obtain is more desirable - engineers/designers get early feedback

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