Comment by colmmacc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by colmmacc | Hacker News Reader

Has a single significant Apple launch not leaked in the last decade? I can't think of any. With the scale of the company and corporate loyalty being what they are these days, it just seems inevitable that many things will leak. Yet Apple persist in a hyper-vigilant program of leak prevention.

There's definitely still huge value in the newsworthiness of the launches. Apple get a lot of free media coverage, and for the most part the press treat the actual launches as news because that final official confirmation matters much more than tenuous leaks.

But I often wonder if the top down focus on secrecy and the famous leak prevention programs are more motivated by the strong desire for focus. One of the challenges of keeping a big company effective is combating the tendency for well-meaning collaboration and suggestion making to turn into sluggish bureaucracy and committees. Secrecy a very powerful tool in optimizing a corporate culture, and reminding everyone that it is definitely not ok to share things has that big benefit too.

IIRC the dynamic island functionality wasn't leaked, albeit the new notch design was. It felts so nice to be properly introduced to new ideas and work.

I'm not surprised that Apple can't contain supplier leaks, they produce these things on such a high scale that tight teams are not an option in production.

However I expect better from Apple when it comes to software leaks as they can have the employees close to themselves.

I definitely dig the leaks but it's much more satisfying to be surprised by a proper presentation. I remember the iPhone 4 situation where the whole device leaked and I was reluctant to believe that this is Apple design because of the poor presentation bu by the tech journalists. Later, after proper introduction and using the device, it become my favourite iPhone design ever. Proper introductions are important, I wish Apple Keynotes weren't spoiled as much.

iphone 4 is timeless except for the bezels/chin/forehead around the screen. No wonder they've basically gone back towards iphone 4 mechanical design.

As Steve Jobs put it, iPhone 4 is like a beautiful old Leica camera.

I’m very satisfied that the last few iPhones have a similar design.

Hardware changes are more likely to leak because large numbers of third parties are involved in the production. Software is mostly internal so it is less likely to leak. Prices and product names are the most contained elements and usually the last to leak as a much smaller number of people are involved.

> Has a single significant Apple launch not leaked in the last decade?

It's not a black and white leak vs no leak situation - there are very clearly degrees of severity at play here.

To use a recent example, sure we all know Apple is working on a VR headset, but there have been (to best of my knowledge) no meaningful leaks of images of the actual hardware or software; these will be a surprise on launch day, and surprises can be news worthy - helpful when trying to sell new things, or slow down the rate at which competitors build imitations.

The thing is, this didn't need to be leaked of us to know it. It was just obvious from job postings.

> and reminding everyone that it is definitely not ok to share things has that big benefit too.

I worked Apple retail, and I've worked in medical, legal and telecom. No other work place was as absolutely hard line about privacy and protecting information as the Apple environment was. And that permeated all parts of the workplace, from Apple's data to customer data. I will never forget how many things were just "fine" to do in the medical places I worked that would have been at a minimum a documentable offense at Apple. Obviously any culture thing is only as good as the people managing your local culture, but even if it never protected another product feature, maintaining that vigilance against leaking data is probably a good overall stance for such a huge tech company.

There are leaks, and then there are leaks. The former is bad for business and the latter is marketing.

I'm having an extremely difficult time believing this isn't a marketing stunt. In what universe can another company beat Apple on implementation, or generally ever do anything wrong according to its loyal fans?

I remember the first 64 bit cpu being a surprise. That was a pretty big deal - possibly not sexy enough of a leak for anyone outside the tech world to care.

> I remember the first 64 bit cpu being a surprise.

MIPS III?[1] DEC Alpha?[2] They were both developed as a response to the 1989 release of Intel's failed i860[3], so I'm not sure who else was surprised. DEC Alpha was legendary, briefly survived the sale of DEC to Compaq in 1998, but was killed finally in 2001 when Compaq sold Alpha technology to Intel.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R4000

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Alpha

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_i860

Swift was a bit under a decade ago. We knew they were going to announce something big just based on how many redacted WWDC sessions there were, but even during the keynote there were arguments over what it was going to be.

AirPods?

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