Daring Fireball on Apple’s Culture of Secrecy

Daring Fireball:

“Thoughtful criticism. I agree with Anil that Apple has an institutional problem, but I disagree over what it is. I believe that it truly is beneficial for Apple to maintain secrecy regarding future products. The problem is that Apple is secretive about everything — not only does Apple not talk about what they’re going to do, they don’t talk about what they’ve already done. The relationship between the App Store and iPhone developers is emblematic of the problem.”

I couldn’t agree with John more. The big problem isn’t that Apple keeps secrets: it’s that it isn’t transparent about anything.

Being totally transparent is easy. Being totally secretive is easy. The real skill is in understanding when to be transparent, and when to be secretive.

(Picture of John Gruber used under Creative Commons license, by Presta – and a really good pic it is too.)

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