Live data from Hacker News

How does Apple keep secrets so well? (2012)

quora.com

11–20 of 26 posts

Re: How does Apple keep secrets so well? (2012)

#11
post #4

I don't see what so special about apple. A lot of entities manage to keep secrets very well. They use a mix of paying their employees well, having a company culture around innovation, a good security system, and contract promissing to sue you to death if you rat. Take the CNES (National Centre for Space Studies in europe): they have individual scanner gates at each entrances. You can't get in without your whole body…

This comparison is laughable. Apple faces far more scrutiny than CNES.

Re: How does Apple keep secrets so well? (2012)

#13
post #4

I don't see what so special about apple. A lot of entities manage to keep secrets very well. They use a mix of paying their employees well, having a company culture around innovation, a good security system, and contract promissing to sue you to death if you rat. Take the CNES (National Centre for Space Studies in europe): they have individual scanner gates at each entrances. You can't get in without your whole body…

CNES isn’t working on consumer products used by billions of people, which where popular enough to generate a market for media publications devoted to only talk about them. The comparison is completely clueless. Where you to spill the beans on some new CNES innovation in a bar, the best you can aspire to is a “cool story bro” remark from some drunk fella sitting next to you. Try doing that when you’re an Apple enginee…

[deleted]

Re: How does Apple keep secrets so well? (2012)

#14
post #4

I don't see what so special about apple. A lot of entities manage to keep secrets very well. They use a mix of paying their employees well, having a company culture around innovation, a good security system, and contract promissing to sue you to death if you rat. Take the CNES (National Centre for Space Studies in europe): they have individual scanner gates at each entrances. You can't get in without your whole body…

CNES isn’t working on consumer products used by billions of people, which where popular enough to generate a market for media publications devoted to only talk about them. The comparison is completely clueless. Where you to spill the beans on some new CNES innovation in a bar, the best you can aspire to is a “cool story bro” remark from some drunk fella sitting next to you. Try doing that when you’re an Apple enginee…

Funny you should mention a bar: https://gizmodo.com/this-is-apples-next-iphone-5520164

:o)

Re: How does Apple keep secrets so well? (2012)

#15
This question has aged badly, Apple used to keep secrets really well, but now they're not doing so well. But I can't remember the last major product they had that wasn't leaked before it was officially announced. And their self-driving car project has been widely written about without even any product in sight.

One good way in which they have become less secrecy-obsessed is that they're now doing public betas of their OSes.

Re: How does Apple keep secrets so well? (2012)

#16

This question has aged badly, Apple used to keep secrets really well, but now they're not doing so well. But I can't remember the last major product they had that wasn't leaked before it was officially announced. And their self-driving car project has been widely written about without even any product in sight. One good way in which they have become less secrecy-obsessed is that they're now doing public betas of thei…

The AirPods were a huge surprise.

Re: How does Apple keep secrets so well? (2012)

#17
post #5
post #4

I don't see what so special about apple. A lot of entities manage to keep secrets very well. They use a mix of paying their employees well, having a company culture around innovation, a good security system, and contract promissing to sue you to death if you rat. Take the CNES (National Centre for Space Studies in europe): they have individual scanner gates at each entrances. You can't get in without your whole body…

Apple makes mass market products by the zillions and has a long external supply chain. They can't put everyone in tubes.

I don't think making mass market products or having a long supply chain necessarily means you can't keep secrets. I mean, Nintendo seems pretty damn good at keeping their cards close to their chest, arguably even better than Apple in that sense, and they've got a decent supply chain and mass market products. Same goes with Valve.

Quite a few smaller companies there are the same way too. You very rarely hear about leaks coming from Retro Studios or Rare for example. Companies have definitely have a more secretive culture, and while it won't 100% stop leaks, it'll definitely keep them to the bare minimum.

Re: How does Apple keep secrets so well? (2012)

#18
post #17
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes mass market products by the zillions and has a long external supply chain. They can't put everyone in tubes.

I don't think making mass market products or having a long supply chain necessarily means you can't keep secrets. I mean, Nintendo seems pretty damn good at keeping their cards close to their chest, arguably even better than Apple in that sense, and they've got a decent supply chain and mass market products. Same goes with Valve. Quite a few smaller companies there are the same way too. You very rarely hear about lea…

Ok, but you're replying to something I didn't say.

Re: How does Apple keep secrets so well? (2012)

#19

This question has aged badly, Apple used to keep secrets really well, but now they're not doing so well. But I can't remember the last major product they had that wasn't leaked before it was officially announced. And their self-driving car project has been widely written about without even any product in sight. One good way in which they have become less secrecy-obsessed is that they're now doing public betas of thei…

The last really major new product announcement was the watch which was a while ago, so it's hard to tell. With really big projects it's hard to hide their existence, even for the military let alone a private firm, but Apple have always been very good at concealing critical details. For example we knew they were working on a web browser, phone, tablet and watch but little else until the public announcements and each came with big surprises. We know they're working on self-driving tech, but beyond that what do we really know about it?
Post reply on HN