> The iPhone was only announced 6 months early to avoid it being leaked by compliance filing (or maybe it was patents).

Is there evidence of this? I think the phone and watch were announced early because Apples vertical integration strategy and quality standards require them to reveal the existence to the rest of the company so they can get everything else working well with the new product category on release. It wouldn't be possible to keep it secret after revealing it internally so they did a simultaneous internal/external reveal to control the message, to maximize impact, to deny rumor sites, etc...