A few things to note here. 1. Anyone on TUAW staff who has signed an NDA will indeed honor it. 2. As a site, we are not going to shy away from covering features in Lion that have been reported elsewhere. 3. It's entirely possible that certain sites have been given permission by Apple to report on Lion -- and that's outside the purview of the NDA.
Remember the anti-drug ad where the drug-using kid tries to use peer pressure to get the straight-laced kid to try some? "Everybody's doing it," he chides the square. In the case of Apple's silent PR police, it would appear that everyone is indeed breaking the non-disclosure agreement purportedly required to download and install a preview copy of Mac OS X 10.7, aka Lion. In fact, I can't recall a previous time when I've seen this much explicit hand-tipping of an upcoming product from Cupertino with absolutely no reprisals whatsoever. Can you?
Apple is legendary for its secrecy. Many things have been written about the great lengths management will go to ensure secrecy of its products and plans, whether it be hardware, software or simple business moves. It's not like other companies don't have secrets -- after all, corporations have to keep plans as private as possible until they are ready to release info. This used to be a carefully calculated game. In the case of high-tech, it is even more so due to issues involving manufacturing, intellectual property (and the legal protections thereof) and good old-fashioned publicity planning.
Once in a while someone will suggest that things like leaving an iPhone prototype in a bar is a calculated publicity move. I would suggest that, up until recently, Apple did not play those games. The culture at Apple is built upon secrecy, which leads to surprise, which inevitably leads to delight from customers and pundits alike. A major OS release for an already-mature product, however, is an entirely different animal. Considering the changes happening in Lion, I would posit that the formerly tight-lipped mothership is tacitly OK with the dribs and drabs and full-on explanations of Lion's new features.
Apple is legendary for its secrecy. Many things have been written about the great lengths management will go to ensure secrecy of its products and plans, whether it be hardware, software or simple business moves. It's not like other companies don't have secrets -- after all, corporations have to keep plans as private as possible until they are ready to release info. This used to be a carefully calculated game. In the case of high-tech, it is even more so due to issues involving manufacturing, intellectual property (and the legal protections thereof) and good old-fashioned publicity planning.
Once in a while someone will suggest that things like leaving an iPhone prototype in a bar is a calculated publicity move. I would suggest that, up until recently, Apple did not play those games. The culture at Apple is built upon secrecy, which leads to surprise, which inevitably leads to delight from customers and pundits alike. A major OS release for an already-mature product, however, is an entirely different animal. Considering the changes happening in Lion, I would posit that the formerly tight-lipped mothership is tacitly OK with the dribs and drabs and full-on explanations of Lion's new features.
No comments:
Post a Comment