Comments for Apple: Secrecy Does Not Scale

Apple: Secrecy Does Not Scale

2009-07-31T13:30:13Z

Apple is justifiably revered in the worlds of technology and culture for creating one of the most powerful brands in the world based on the combination of some key elements: Great user experience and design, and an extraordinary secrecy punctuated by surprising reveals. But the element of secrecy that's been required to maintain Apple's mystique has incurred an increasingly costly price. Apple must transform itself and leave its history of secrecy behind, not just to continue being innovative and to protect the fundamentals of its business, but because the cost of keeping these secrets has become morally and ethically untenable.

Some recent history:

Sun Danyong, a young man in Dongguan, China, who worked for Foxconn, one of Apple's most important iPhone suppliers, killed himself after misplacing a prototype iPhone device.
Apple prohibited the Google Voice application from being distributed on its iTunes application store with no public explanation of why, a refusal to offer any suggestions that could permit the application to be distributed, and no process for appealing the decision.
Apple removed third-party Google Voice-compatible applications by explaining that they violate a policy against applications that duplicate native iPhone functionality, despite this rule being wildly inconsistent in its enforcement. Again, Apple refused to offer any suggestions for how developers could comply with the guidelines, and offered no process for appealing the decision.

The circumstances of Danyong's suicide are murky -- it's possible that he was involved in supplying the iPhone prototype to copycat manufacturers which would create knockoff devices, but the theory has also been advanced that he was merely unable to cope with the stress of the extreme secrecy required for his work. Regardless of the reason for Danyong's death, copycat manufacturers are a fact of doing business in China; It is only the extraordinary veil drawn around the product that makes such disclosures so particularly fraught.

Similarly, every carrier (and nearly every mobile application platform) has some arduous or even capricious limitations on the applications that can be created by developers. But for better or worse, those limitations are spelled out clearly, in a way that developers can anticipate, and decisions to prohibit particular applications are explicit even when they are annoying or offensive to those of us who believe in open platforms.

This means that those of us who support Apple with our dollars and attention are supporting a company that chooses to operate with an extreme and excessive layer of secrecy, even when making reasonable business decisions. This squelching of communication about Apple's products results in customers being unhappy or uncertain of the future value of their purchases, developers being too afraid to bet their livelihoods on a platform whose fundamental opportunities could be destroyed at any time, and suppliers being forced to inflict unreasonable or even inhumane restrictions on their employees. And that's in addition to the incredible stress that Apple employees themselves have had to endure, from missing Christmas to get products ready for MacWorld without even being able to tell family members why they must do so, to public-facing communications staff having to endure the misery of telling developers that their products or businesses are being terminated by fiat, without so much as an explanation.

I'm certain the web's usual contingent of soulless Randists will believe this level of suffering is somehow acceptable despite its moral cost, because The Market has made Apple a success. But there's even a financial argument: Apple spends an enormous amount of money on protecting and obfuscating normal business operations that any other company can do in the open. It's hard to estimate just how much the overhead of this extreme secrecy costs the company, but it's obviously many millions of dollars extra per year. And it will only get more expensive as large-scale realtime communications get more and more commoditized.

The Case for Secrecy

Now, if being ultra-private about announcements has such a terrible cost, then why does Apple go to all the trouble? Apologists would say that Apple gets three significant benefits from its incredible secrecy:

An extremely disproportionate amount of extraordinarily favorable press from its "surprise" product launches
A significant lead time on the rest of the market being able to copy Apple innovations
An intangible benefit to the brand being so tightly controlled by the company
These benefits are real to some extent today, but in each case, the benefit is almost certainly not viable over the long term. Let's look at why:

"But they get so much free press from the element of surprise in their announcements!" This isn't true -- for almost every major announcement of the past several years, we've known the major points days, or even weeks, in advance. In fact, they earn the majority of their press from the extraordinary appeal of their products in design and user experience, as well as the pure showmanship they put into their signature launch events, which are unequalled thus far in the industry.

"But if they don't keep stuff a secret, other companies will be able to copy them!" Other companies already do copy Apple, and always have. And — dirty little secret — Apple has always copied other companies as well. This is a normal part of the business cycle (indeed, before its current bastardization, the patent system was designed to encourage this behavior), and no amount of secrecy will stop it. More to the point, if the only reason people are buying your product is because it has no viable competitors, then your standing in the marketplace is too tenuous to be defended anyway.

"But people love Apple's brand because it's so micromanaged!" This is the most insidious and inaccurate of all the justifications. In fact, since Apple's brand began to recover in the late 90s, two of the greatest and most influential global brands in the world have emerged: Google and Barack Obama. In both cases, they've embraced openness, transparency, and letting their communities define their brand. Despite my belief in my recent pointed criticisms of Google, it's worth noting that a number of high-profile Googlers responded personally, both privately and publicly, to the issues that I raised, all indicating that they took the discussion to heart. And President Obama has taken his penchant for talking things through to such an extreme that it's nearly become a let's-have-some-beers parody of itself.

In contrast, Apple's employees will be too cowed to publicly respond to this post, though I know they'll see it. Partners are tired of being bullied or facing petulant sanctions for accidental disclosures of relatively innocuous bits of information. And eventually, anyone talented and independent-minded enough to participate in the kind of innovation practiced at Apple is going to chafe at being constrained in how they can express themselves.

Real Artistry

Self expression matters because Apple has always explicitly tied itself to the world of the arts and expression. One of my favorite (possibly apocryphal) Steve Jobs quotes is "Real artists ship", a testament to the fact that an invention that never sees the light of day can't affect anyone. But if we're talking about real artists, then let's consider all of their traits.

Real artists also expose themselves, making themselves vulnerable through honest expression so that their audience can see their humanity, and thus form a connection to something universal in all of us. Apple is still holding on to the centralized, Pravda-style public relations that artists used in 1984 when the Mac was introduced. Back then, giant record labels and a few powerful media outlets could tightly control the flow of information around a tiny cluster of superstars. The superstars of 1984 -- Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna -- subscribed to the doctrine of doing no interviews or press, and having their only communication with the public happen through tightly-managed events where they had total control.

Today's biggest and most influential artists, from Kanye West to Trent Reznor to Radiohead, are very nearly competing to see who can be most transparent. The immediacy and intimacy with which they communicate and create their works is dramatic, and they encourage their communities to get involved in a ritual that Apple used to encourage: Rip, Mix, Burn.

The sad truth is that Apple is still stuck in an anachronistic, 1984 mode of communicating with the world. If Apple doesn't evolve, it'll become a pathetic-looking giant, constantly playing whack-a-mole with information leaks, diminishing its relevance by antagonizing the very creators it has so long sought to identify with. Worse, while the fashions of 1984 might be back in style, the ability to tightly control a message is never going to come in vogue again, and the one thing Apple's brand can't withstand is suddenly becoming uncool. (I'm pretty sure Apple's also had a word or two to say about why today's world shouldn't be like 1984.)

Look Around And Learn

Every company, when facing a serious problem, suddenly starts blogging. From the giant auto manufacturers to troubled banks, it's been astounding to see how frequently companies figure out that embracing transparency yields an enormous improvement in how much their customers and community trust them. When Amazon screwed up by abusing their DRM powers over Kindle owners, they were a little slow to respond, but absolutely flawless in their message when they had Jeff Bezos himself post a simple, straightforward apology to Kindle owners in their own community, complete with open comments for people to respond. And it was an easy leap for Amazon to make -- they have extensive experience not just with consumer-facing blogs, but in talking directly to developers or business partners as well. While much was made of Amazon recalling George Orwell's titles, it's Apple's behavior that is most Orwellian overall.

This lesson isn't entirely lost on Apple; Once in a great while a missive will arrive from on high arrives in the form of a one-page letter from Steve Jobs on a significant issue. And when the debacle of MobileMe's bumbling launch got bad enough, Apple even launched a short-lived blog to address the issue. So it's not impossible that Apple can start to communicate in at least a semi-human, responsive way. Even better, Apple clearly has some parts of its corporate culture that want to do the right thing, as evidenced by its unusual willingness to offer refunds to a variety of disgruntled classes of customers over the years.

But the reason for Apple to embrace some open communications channels isn't merely because of the practical necessity of talking to customers, developers and partners. It's because this is the right thing to do. Apple has long been able to pride itself on being innovative even when the market wasn't demanding bold moves of them. Nothing could be more courageous than for Apple to take a decisive step to redefine a core part of their brand's history to be more in keeping with contemporary communication. Moving from the classic Mac OS to OS X or from PowerPC to Intel would be nothing compared to a transition from ultra-secretive to collaborative and expressive. It would show that Apple has the self-awareness to evolve into a better, more humane organization than they've been in the past.

The reckoning Apple has reached, whether it's admitted or not, is that its secrecy is compromising its humanity. Some of the smartest and most innovative developers on any platform are leaving and taking their creativity with them. The trade press who had embarrassed themselves with their effusive cheering for Apple in the past are rushing to cover absurdities like entire sites being dedicated to Kremlinology about Apple's platform decisions. If losing your cool doesn't move you, Apple, then what about people losing their lives to this domineering, outdated mindset?

It's incumbent upon Apple to do the moral thing here. Treat your employees, customers, suppliers and partner companies better, by letting them participate in the thing most of your products are designed for: Human self-expression. If the ethical argument is unpersuasive, then focus on the long-term viability of your marketing and branding efforts, and realize that a technology company that is determined to prevent information from being spread is an organization at war with itself. Civil wars are expensive, have no winners, and incur lots of casualties.

There is a path out of the current quagmire. Apple can start to see its customers as collaborators, and start to encourage them to use the very Apple products they've purchased as a conduit for sharing messages about the company and its products. Apple's fans have already shown a willingness to create fictitious print, television, and online advertising that exceeds other company's actual efforts in quality while still being slavishly faithful to Apple's brand guidelines. And being an open company doesn't mean that there can't be the occasional big surprise — in fact companies like Google often find it easier to have things "hide in plain site" because so much of what they do is open that the curious often don't dig past the surface to find out what else is going on.

Finally, there is the opportunity for Apple's employees themselves to act as ambassadors for the brand. Frankly, those Geniuses in the Apple stores aren't the most flattering face for the company. But instead of prohibiting all the other thousands of Apple employees from engaging in conversations about their professional lives on the web and in social media, perhaps they could be empowered to express the company's ideas in their own words. That would be an enormous resource that would be unleashed by Apple's evolution into a communicative company.

So Apple: Do the right thing. End your addiction to secrecy.

Comment from Dave Aiello on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T14:35:48Z

Anil, you're totally right on this.

A member of my extended family works for Apple. You'd think that I could have a nice conversation with this person once in a while about their company, given my great admiration for them and their products. It's not worth it.

Every time I've tried I run into some issue that can't be discussed, or where my view deviates in some way from Apple's official policy. And that's the end of the conversation.

We should be able to celebrate our shared interests, not go out of our way to avoid these subjects.

Comment from gstein on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T15:00:29Z

Your point about "suddenly starting to blog" made me think about Microsoft from some number of years ago. Their MSDN was unequalled in how a developer program should be run. But they started to lose touch with the "new breed" of developers.

So they started up Channel 9 (maybe earlier?), got some crazy men like Scoble to get out and make them less faceless, and started having a *conversation* with all of their developers. A fabulous turnaround for what was becoming quite staid.

Apple is absolutely alienating and disenfranchising their developers. They always have. It's just become worse over the past couple years.

But consumers? I think consumers will continue to love them. All of us geeks are running around crying foul, but I don't think Joe Consumer really freakin' cares. Most will never realize that apps have been denied, or pulled, or the lack of a conversation that goes with that.

IOW, I think Apple is gonna be able to pull this crap for a long, long time. We can bitch and moan, but Apple will continue to roll in new consumers.

It isn't sustainable, but neither is Microsoft Word. And look at the billions that continues to make.

Comment from costolo on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T16:11:09Z

Anil, what's up the recent spate of thoughtful blog posts? Some sort of special diet? Getting more vitamin D than usual this summer? Another excellent post after years of nary a dashes.com entry on Techmeme.

Comment from minors on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T16:29:38Z

So tech companies should no longer prohibit distribution of their prototypes to competitors and/or counterfeiters? Sorry, but I fail to see how that will lower the rate of suicide in China. Or anywhere else.

Vilification rarely leads to useful ideas. On the other hand yes, Apple needs to sort out its app policy. But even once they've done that, no carrier is going to allow software that disrupts their business model or infrastructure, whether it's from Apple or anyone else.

Comment from Anil on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T16:32:00Z

"what's up the recent spate of thoughtful blog posts? "

It was my understanding that this sort of blogging is where the big money is: Multi-thousand word posts. Does this mean I'm not getting a big check from Google for all of this work?

Comment from Jamie on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T17:19:24Z

Great post. It's so funny that as savvy at marketing as people at Apple are, they're still so stuck with the old way of doing things. Like you said, there's nothing you can hide in today's world and you actually risk unwanted results when leaks got picked up by media and spun in bad ways.

I think Apple is a very respectable tech innovator but I feel sorry it has this anti-social culture that's gonna forever limit them to a niche player.

Comment from davidhfe on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T18:18:07Z

There are two things going on here, and I'm not convinced they're as related as this post makes them out to be.

First off, Apple is a secretive company. They play things close, control their message, create suspense and anticipation. This might not be the way "things are done" in 2009, but you cannot argue that it has not worked for Apple. They control their customer's expectations and experiences and it works for them. I'm not really sure that the other extreme, 2+ year long "betas" of websites, is really any better than shutting up until a product is as good as its going to be. The Sun Danyong incident is horrible and regrettable but its a bit sensationalistic to say "Apple's strategy is wrong" based on one tragic event.

Journalists seem to hate that Apple doesn't give them 2 years of news cycles about upcoming products, but as a consumer I don't just don't really care that much. 2 years vs 2 weeks of lead time doesn't change the fact that I can't purchase a product until a certain date set by a company and that's that.

The other issue is developer relations. This has always been a weak spot for Apple but until now they've been able to largely get away with it for a variety of reasons. Now that they have a platform that is driving huge innovations in development and is garnering huge press, maybe their attitude towards developers will finally change. Not just on the iPhone (although the App Store is the biggest problem) but across the board; all platforms. "Keep developers happy" is one lesson Apple has never bothered to learn from Microsoft.

Comment from rmillward.myopenid.com on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T19:54:08Z

Shorter Anil Dash: Apple should stop being so secretive because I don't like secrets.

From what alternate universe does this stem? The last time I checked, Apple was a for-profit, public company. That which they must disclose by law, they do. But because they are such a large presence in your life, and the lives of your friends you write about, they should now abandon their lucrative, legal - and highly successful - practices because... well... you and yours just want to know more about what they're doing?

Please. You're Anil Dash, not some sodding little whiner at Gizmodo. Try to maintain some perspective here, OK?

Comment from hypermark on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T20:20:43Z

While I totally agree with your sentiments, I think that the foundation is "ought" not "must."

In the present, Apple's success is unparalleled and the engine is humming better than ever on multiple vectors - products, margins, developers, profits, consumer engagement, etc.

Citing Google and Obama style openness and their effectiveness does not invalidate the effectiveness of Apple's proprietary, integrated, secretive, totalitarian-style approach.

In my opinion, you have to put a bow around this one, otherwise it sounds like sour grapes, and confusing vitamins with aspirin/penicillin.

The tough part is that unless and until there is a better alternative, the lion's share of developers will bitch in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon...at least that's the way that the ones that I work with operate. :-)

The part that is invisible is that at some point an Android gets ready for prime time or a Pre-type of device establishes a real beachhead with developers, and all of this un-necessary ill will can then vote with their feet.

Net-net: I don't question that Apple's approach is working for it TODAY. I also prefer the type of integrated, fully formed solution that Apple delivers to what feels like an LCD-type/ "good enough" approach for most Google type offerings.

I would simply argue that: A) there are enough incongruities between the brand that Apple has created and how it lives the gestalt of their brand that at some point they become mutually exclusive; either the brand gets dinged or the behavior changes; and B) developers make a platform. The meme that "there's an app for that" is not a bottomless well that self-replenishes. If/when developers hit some threshold of diminished cost/benefit AND there's a perceived alternative, that's analogous to past history, when Windows outflanked Mac, at least in some part by winning over the developers, big and small.

Cheers,

Mark

Comment from bergmayer on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T21:16:56Z

The rest of your points are valid, but the pulling of the Google apps was almost certainly done at AT&T's behest. Apple is probably not allowed to actually say this.

Now, maybe Apple should not have entered into a contract with AT&T giving them this kind of say. Maybe they should have designed a system without a centralized point of control, so that they could never be forced to block apps they don't want to.

Still, however bad (and it has been bad) Apple's mismanagement of the App Store has been, let's not forget the influence of the mobile industry here.

Comment from https://me.yahoo.com/a/eAmJYFt808lcLWCjlBjlWxnXXMTBM0zmwn4xgg--#166c5 on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T21:40:40Z

Quick ethics test: Would any of your advice change if (a) you weren’t working for a blog-software maker or (b) you just removed every reference to blogs?

In other words, would you stand by everything you said if we excluded the sections that deal with your own line of business?

Comment from sameerchandra on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T21:41:16Z

Nothing remains the same! Neither will Apple!
In time, they will realize that this veil of secrecy that surrounds everyone and everything at 1 Infinite Loop is going to cost too much to bear.

I agree with you on the "Apple Geniuses", just wearing a T-Shirt, keeping a whacky hairdo, doesn't make any of them what they claim. Most are pretentious pricks, who blabber out what they've learnt in their training sessions...to belittle the customer to make them feel that anything "Apple" is god's gift to mankind!

Comment from https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkLFDcu58J1IjyjNguaBeJkBAuhhbAmft0 on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T22:32:39Z

Yes, of course you're right. Apple has to change because its current policy is just not working... I mean, how much money money does it have in the bank, and how many iPhones has it sold, and how many people are using OS X, and who doesn't have an iPod, and just how far behind its competition is it? I demand to know.

Comment from https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkLFDcu58J1IjyjNguaBeJkBAuhhbAmft0 on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T22:42:44Z

By the way, you assert, in linking to Steven Frank's post about his dissatisfaction with the iPhone OS "ecosystem", that Panic is not developing for the Mac any more. "Taking their creativity with them", eh? I bet Steven and Cabel would have something to say about *that*.
If I were you you I'd change that and apologise before they sue you. They'd win.

Comment from Anil on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T22:49:16Z

"Shorter Anil Dash: Apple should stop being so secretive because I don't like secrets."

While I find your intellectual dishonesty charming, I think it's pretty obvious that shorter Anil Dash is: "Apple should stop being so secretive because PEOPLE ARE FUCKING DYING BECAUSE OF IT."

"In other words, would you stand by everything you said if we excluded the sections that deal with your own line of business?"

Yep. Even if I don't remove it, Apple has their own blogging software; There's virtually no chance that the company I work for would benefit financially from this approach. Put another way: I advocate for the medium because I believe in it, and make my career fit my beliefs, instead of the other way around.

"Yes, of course you're right. Apple has to change because its current policy is just not working... I mean, how much money money does it have in the bank, and how many iPhones has it sold, and how many people are using OS X, and who doesn't have an iPod, and just how far behind its competition is it? I demand to know."

No, Apple has to change because its behaviors are causing it to do unethical things and affect people's lives negatively. Good to see that I was right in assuming some people would assert that marketplace success justifies any behavior by a corporation, no matter how flawed.

Comment from Anil on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T22:56:25Z

"I bet Steven and Cabel would have something to say about *that*. If I were you you I'd change that and apologise before they sue you. They'd win."

I bet Steven and Cabel would call me up and ask me to clarify and I'd do it because they are awesome. You, however, are an imbecile.

Comment from t.m.will on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T23:05:43Z

Nitpick: I think the correct adjective is 'Randian' not 'Randist.'

Comment from https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkLFDcu58J1IjyjNguaBeJkBAuhhbAmft0 on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T23:08:08Z

You said: "Some of the smartest and most innovative developers on any platform are leaving and taking their creativity with them." And used Steven Frank's post about not liking Apple's "iPhone OS ecosystem" to prove your point. That doesn't need clarifying. You're just wrong. Steven makes it clear he's commenting as a consumer, not a developer. Panic hasn't released any software for the iPhone. Panic is not "leaving" developing for the Mac. Explain how pointing this out makes me an "imbecile".

Comment from katzke on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T23:14:59Z

Anil, I completely agree with your points about the app store. However, as you discuss the forest of Apple's secrecy, you've conveniently circumlocuted one particular tree.

One thing that Apple in particular does NOT do that benefits it is that they do not set up expectations about the features their products will have. How often have other companies' product launches been delayed because engineers were trying to hit some artificial targets that marketing set? How often were developers at other companies, although free to talk about their jobs and work, pressed into long work hours to hit promises by a release date? How often have companies set themselves up for failure by discussing the features their 'next generation' was going to have before work had even started on designing it? (Hint: Palm is famous for this.)

Nothing you discussed is exclusive to Apple ... most companies go out of their way to prevent uncontrolled information leaks ahead of time. Apple just one-ups everyone else by declining to set themselves up for failure.

Comment from katzke on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T23:18:19Z

Also: Insulting those who comment on your blog, right, wrong, or troll, is tacky.

Comment from t.m.will on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T23:19:57Z

"Keep developers happy" is one lesson Apple has never bothered to learn from Microsoft.

You're right, the focus of the two companies is different. Microsoft is about developers, developers, developers! Apple is about end users, end users, end users! The former focus requires openness, whereas the latter does not.

Microsoft forecasts, gives guidance, gives documentation, gives information, and tries to inform developers to the greatest extent possible. Apple doesn't pre-announce products, gives extremely guarded and conservative guidance, doesn't give a whole lot of details, puts a number of (explicit and frustratingly implicit) constraints on developers.

This leads to two different outcomes in terms of environment: the Windows environment scales, has a wide array of diverse products offered (both software and hardware), and the quality and interoperability is concomitantly patchy; the Apple environment grows at an arithmetic rather than geometric rate, it offers far fewer options (both in software and in hardware), but the quality and functionality usually 'just works' and does so without a tremendous degree of complexity for the end user.

I'm not convinced that one model is better than the other. Developers will obviously favor the environment that is built around them. But the popularity and dominance of things like the iPod Touch and iPhone (with end users) are going to make attractive markets, regardless of how many frustrating hoops Apple makes developers jump through.

Apple has been quite successful with their secrecy since 1997 and especially since 2004. I don't think it's particularly insightful to demand that Apple change its ways to be more like Microsoft, when Apple is at the height of its creativity and growth and Microsoft is in a period of turbulence.

Comment from gallagherwm on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T23:24:08Z

I am going to kill myself after reading this blog entry. I can't live in a world where people think exactly like sensationalist media outlets.

Comment from Anil on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T23:27:20Z

I will grant that it may be tacky. Never let it be said that I am not tacky. But I never made a statement implying Panic is doing anything. I linked to a post that demonstrates that someone creative is leaving the platform, which is true.

Comment from Anil on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T23:32:57Z

Wait a minute. On this site you can either falsely claim to be contemplating suicide, or you can complain about sensationalism. But you most certainly cannot do both.

Comment from Wally on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T23:45:28Z

Real artists also expose themselves, making themselves vulnerable through honest expression so that their audience can see their humanity, and thus form a connection to something universal in all of us. Apple is still holding on to the centralized, Pravda-style public relations that artists used in 1984 when the Mac was introduced.

Leaving aside the melodrama and histrionics of this post - you're seriously saying Apple's PR strategy and corporate culture are not only impeding them technologically but killing employees, which is uninformed speculation coupled to shoddy cultural criticism - the above-quoted equivalence is inappropriate and damaging. Apple is not 'an artist,' nor can it be productively likened to one, nor does it buttress your argument to say 'Trent Reznor lets teenagers remix his shit, why isn't Apple just like that?!' The metaphorical links are too weak.

Same problem with your Obama comparison - the man runs the tightest message-control operation ever seen in American politics, more disciplined than the Bushes (and, helpfully, less mendacious). Far more Apple-like than you're claiming.

(You really think Obama having an off-the-record sitdown with a cop and a professor in the middle of a publicity firestorm is about 'transparent communication'? C'mon.)

But then this is typical startup-culture 'Openness!!!!' boosterism, isn't it? Talking about 'open communication' as a nearly abstract concept, with a weirdly childlike Bay Area 'people are dying!' twist.

All of this atop your mischaracterization of the Steven Frank thing, and the fact that the Google Voice shit is presumably an AT&T decision and far more complex than 'Do what's right, dude.'

To my eye you're off-base on this one, Anil. Your heart seems to be in the right place, but this blog post is, um, elsewhere.

Comment from Wally on 2009-07-31

2009-07-31T23:46:44Z

Wait a minute. On this site you can either falsely claim to be contemplating suicide, or you can complain about sensationalism. But you most certainly cannot do both.

This, on the other hand, is both appropriate and funny.

Comment from stevenfrank880 on 2009-07-31

2009-08-01T00:01:23Z

For the sake of absolute clarity, everything I wrote in my blog post about leaving the iPhone is entirely MY OWN opinion.

Although Panic has not yet made any iPhone apps, it should not be inferred from my blog post that _Panic_ never will. I am far from being the only programmer here, and I _most certainly_ do not single-handedly determine the company's direction.

Furthermore, Panic remains fully committed to Mac software development. I could get run over by a bus tomorrow, and that would remain true.

All it means is that I -- and I alone -- am getting out of the iPhone pool until it smells better.

Thanks for allowing me the space to clear that up!

Comment from Anil on 2009-07-31

2009-08-01T01:30:02Z

Steven, thanks for clearing it up -- I was clear on your meaning from the start, but I appreciate you making it explicit. That being said, what you personally could hack on in your free time (and won't be) may well be as compelling as the best apps on other platforms. I say that as someone who's poking through the Android app market as I type this. :)

Comment from markjaquith.com on 2009-08-01

2009-08-01T06:57:42Z

I'm certain the web's usual contingent of soulless Randists will believe this level of suffering is somehow acceptable despite its moral cost, because The Market has made Apple a success.

I'll bite, despite the term "Randist" being utterly self-contradictory (I prefer "unrepentant capitalist"). First, the government, through the DMCA and other anticompetitive legislation, has enabled some of Apple's anti-consumer behavior. Let's not pretend that Apple operates in a completely free market. Insomuch as Apple operates in a comparatively free market, that doesn't mean I have to be happy about the decisions they've made. I think you make a good argument that Apple's actions are not made in their own best self-interest. Even if they were, I could be more demanding as a consumer and not simply take their abuse just because their products are superior. There's a free market case to be made that Apple's customers and developer communities are enablers of Apple's secretiveness and authoritarian management practices. It weighs fairly heavily on my conscience that I am willing to give up digital freedoms in exchange for a well-designed prison cell with glossy reflections and a brushed aluminum toilet that always flushes.

Google and Barack Obama. In both cases, they've embraced openness, transparency, and letting their communities define their brand.

This is tangential, but Obama campaigned on such ideals of transparency. In execution, he is as opaque as his predecessor. He had a campaign promise to allow for five days of public review of a bill before signing it. Of all the bills he has signed, only for one of them did he allow this review period. He has broken many more campaign promises, such as his stand against signing statements, lobbyists, indefinite detention of terrorism suspects, etc. By the end of four years, Obama is going to owe every American a beer in the Rose Garden. And if he orders a Bud Lite for my session, I'm going to demand a do-over!

Your thesis is sound, even though I must confess that if Apple were to embrace it, I'd miss the drama and excitement that their secrecy enables.

But I'd trade that for a Google Voice app on my iPhone that could hook in to the native dialer.

Unrelated technical gripe: I wish MT's OpenID support would allow me to list my name. "markjaquith.com" isn't the author of this comment—I am.

Comment from mythic.boost on 2009-08-01

2009-08-01T08:51:39Z

Trent Reznor allows his fans to remix his music. Why is it unreasonable for Apple to embrace its fanboys?
These are the people who, despite reading, acknowledging and even agreeing with some of these points against Apple (which have started to become more and more prevalent among various tech circles, and certainly weren't 2-3 years ago), will still spend fairly significant sums of money on Apple's shiniest, newest products. Or the people who aren't paid by the company to troll blogs and forums with "get a Mac."
Microsoft's mishaps have proven that anticompetitive practices will only get you distrust and even hate from the consumers who you're trying to win over and more legal issues than any large corporation would like, not to mention mockery from your competitors- hasn't that been the foundation of numerous Apple marketing campaigns?

Comment from jonkeaty on 2009-08-01

2009-08-01T12:32:29Z

Good design is not done by committee, the wisdom of crowds has no place in innovation. Benevolent dictatorship is the only way to break new ground. Apple don't want a dialog about the design or business decisions they are making - just look at the nonsensical features everyone imagines will be on the new tablet, in fact look how people are demanding a tablet even though not one of them has any idea what they would use it for.

Secrecy allows Apple to experiment, and destroy concepts that don't meet their objectives. Without secrecy this would look like bad decisions or poor management, and worse some of these bad designs would be forced into production.

Keep up the secrecy, Apple. Only lift the curtain when you're good and certain the work is the best you can do.

Comment from bac.anh.minh on 2009-08-01

2009-08-01T13:26:46Z

Dash provided and excellent case for Apple to embrace Wikinomics, the way to do business in the twenty first century. Failure to change will put Apple behind its competitors in innovation.

Comment from qnetter on 2009-08-01

2009-08-01T15:04:42Z

Wow, what staggering naivete.

No developer at any company should be telling friends and family the details of the futures they're working on. "Sorry, I have to work -- there's a mandatory-overtime rush on" should be sufficient.

Do you know anything about revenue recognition? If Apple were to talk about features of iPhone software (for instance) significantly before they ship, a prudent auditor would see those features as part of an incomplete delivery on every iPhone that was shipped, and refuse their right to recognize revenue. Google isn't subject to this because they're an ad agency that uses some online software as part of their delivery mechanism -- once they present the ads, their job is done. Surely you don't propose all hardware and software be delivered for free with advertising, just to break down the walls?!

I've worked for over thirty years in the computer industry, and I've seen the awful cost to engineers and the business as a whole of discussing futures in public, both at companies I've worked for and at our competitors: features dropped at the last minute or shipped at low quality to meet a schedule, leading to huge customer dissatisfaction and, ultimately, marketplace disaster. Apple's got this one right: tell people what they're getting no earlier than you can be sure it's exactly what they'll get.

And the suicide argument is nonsense, at least as much a cultural artifact as a side-effect of Apple policy. If an employee killed himself because he feared the shame of being exposed as an embezzler, does that mean companies should start leaving piles of cash lying around for the taking?

Comment from bernardo.parrella on 2009-08-01

2009-08-01T16:57:56Z

i think that including the suicide of a chinese person in this context ("apple secrecy") is a bit of a stretch and the loss of a human life is always much much larger of any tech-related issue

also, that tragic story is not an isolated case and is mostly due a high competitive environment in china these days, with "normal" bad behaviour-policies by those companies execs, to say the least - just read this post published a few days ago on global voices online

Comment from humphrey.eric on 2009-08-01

2009-08-01T17:05:23Z

Brilliant post... It's fascinating to watch a company like Apple navigate its public relations, with a particular focus on consumers and developers, when we're on the edge of a paradigm shift in how we share knowledge. It's difficult to draw distinct lines in progress while you're in the midst of it, but it's safe to assume we're in the second half of this transition from a singular to a collective intelligence. One just has to look to the success, surprising accuracy and overwhelming depth of Wikipedia to get a sense of this movement. Invariably, mentioning the "W" word elicits cries and concerns about corruptibility, but the beauty of the experiment (because yes, it is an social experiment) lies in its shortcomings. No closed-door entity could ever amass, maintain and update that amount of information, but unchecked collaboration can obviously cause serious problems. Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia entry in the fall of 2008 is testament to this. Anarchy is bad. Draconian police states are worse. But, balance...

And the same is true of innovation. @Jonkeaty is dead-on that "good design is not done by committee" (Linux, anyone?). At the risk of sounding trite, though, no wo/man is an island (or company, for that matter). True progress comes out of many. The notion that a single person "invents" an idea or independently "innovates" is delusional as it is flawed, and therein lies the issue: how can collaboration have quality control without suffocating, or even preventing, creativity? It's not crowds, but the people in them that spawn innovation. I'll refrain from saying any more than just highlighting the USPTO's current state of affairs, but it's only a matter of time until a better paradigm evolves.

Like it or not, we need police, but the system only works when there are clearly defined rules and regulations in place. Otherwise, the ecosystem becomes unlivable for those that do not reside in known territory. A continued lack of transparency in the iPhone OS marketplace (future tablet, included) will eventually chase off the best developers (and therefore the most bleeding-edge products), causing the App store to degenerate to an overcrowded mess of "been-there-done-that" utilities and likely amazing, albeit ultimately insignificant, games – and the consumers will lose. And when the consumers lose, they leave. In fact, it's already started. The biggest fanboy/girl in the world won't really care about the next Rolando when other (ahem, Android) devices have Hulu/Spotify/Google Voice. And so on, and so on.

Comment from lfeldman257 on 2009-08-01

2009-08-01T18:21:51Z

Apple has been unable to control leaks for some time; virtually all of the details of the iPhone 3G and 3GS, as well as new/updated iPods, MacBooks, applications, etc. have leaked months before their public releases. The resulting "announcements" were more like confirmations.

The reality is that Apple's secrecy has become an illusion, largely due to the company's decision to use foreign manufacturers to keep costs down. As for the Google Voice rejection and Apple's refusal to disclose its rationale, it's not secrecy, it's intransigence. The FCC is now investigating, and its questions (its inquiry letters are available on TechCrunch) leave little room for Apple or AT&T to hide their discussions or decision-making process.

Comment from https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlz5ihDG4gXQ13O22IUlITTtZcOCZ2-qd4 on 2009-08-01

2009-08-01T20:25:44Z

This is my first time reading your blog. Are you always this deep?

I'm neither an apple fan-boy or hater, but the arbitrary way they handle their app-store is becoming more ridiculous every day. Actions like these and endless doublespeak are proof that Apple will soon replace Google as the "company most likely to be evil".

Comment from http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottj on 2009-08-01

2009-08-01T21:30:15Z

Looks like the FCC thinks Apple's secrecy isn't such a good thing either.

Comment from floatingtrem on 2009-08-01

2009-08-01T22:21:35Z

While you do make some good points here, Apple hard line for secrecy must have some negative consequences, I feel you take things too far in a call for a more open collaborative company.

While it is important to make a product that people will want, one also has to recognize that people are stupid, and en masse even dumber. Apple has a history of hiring very smart people to do very smart things.

Is Steve Jobs a Nazi? Sure; but I fear for the day he leaves the company, because products with as refined of a style and quality as Apple's need a maniacal dictator in charge.

When you give the people control of their products you get MySpace. People love it, its hugely popular, but it is a terrible product in almost any sense of the word.

Comment from https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlyhS5aTLKoeogrTKEgJtT5Wnck65d81hM on 2009-08-01

2009-08-01T22:22:58Z

I agree. I like a lot of what Apple, do, but I'd never buy any of their products because of the way the company behaves.

For example, I was given a 1st-gen nano, and really impressed by the hardware. I chose to replace the software by rockbox, so I could enjoy the better audio quality available using ogg rather than mp3. For classical music, gapless playback is essential, and mp3 doesn't do this well.

I *was* going to buy a more recent nano. But Apple don't support ogg (no good technical reason why), and they've gone to substantial engineering effort to encrypt the firmware, so I can't run my own choice of software on the device.

Why is the company obsessed with making their products *less* useful?

Comment from jmspring on 2009-08-01

2009-08-02T01:21:58Z

I don't mean to sound crass, but including the case of the Foxconn employee in your example weakens it. The loss of any human is tragic. However, the full back story behind the motives is not known. If the individual was engaged in industrial espionage, then said individual was looking at some hard conseqeunces, especially in China. When you work for an employer, you are bound by the terms you commit to.

As for Apple's secrecy, I personally do not mind it with regard to future products. I do have issues with the opacity of things like the iTunes App store. If you are going to set up something where individuals are putting time in to develop for a platform the guidelines should be clear an open as to what you can and can not do.

In this regard, I agree with secrecy. But as to new products and commitments to non-disclosure for an employer, I highly disagree.

Comment from 1word.myid.net on 2009-08-01

2009-08-02T03:17:58Z

anil, your observations are spot on! especially, the death of the worker in china is all too suspicious, and yet, its so easy for apple to distance itself from it.

things have moved from 1984 to now, information is truly open , and most importantly, news is distributed instantly and through open channels, unlike in 84 when it was a very closed society.

apple enjoyed gaming the news sources earlier, its no longer true. and for people other than the apple fans - its very apparent that its a sick game, no longer appreciated by non apple fans ...whose legion is growing thanks to the sale of apple products, to circles outside the normal mac boundaries.

Comment from daboulet on 2009-08-02

2009-08-02T06:04:55Z

I think that it is useful to distinguish between how secrecy is used and abused by a company like Apple. For example, their secrecy surrounding potential products and such is at least defensible in general terms even if the extent to which they are seemingly prepared to go to enforce this secrecy is almost certainly not defensible.

The aspects of secrecy at Apple that tend to really annoy me are the almost gratuitous secrecy and inscrutability which they practice in really quite foolish realms. Would it really hurt to publish (i.e. posting on their web site for all to see) the criteria for accepting or rejecting an application on the app store? Would it really hurt to provide a meaningful appeal process when a rejection does occur coupled with a clear explanation of how what they did wrong violated _published_ rules (I am going out on a limb a bit on this one as I do not really know if there is an appeal process or not; I am pretty sure that they do not provide much in the way of explanation of how at least some rejections occur)? Would it really hurt to comment publicly on any of a wide range of issues which have come up in recent years for which Apple has chosen the "stoney silence" approach to public relations?

Finally, I will note that the FCC has just asked Apple, AT&T and Google to explain the recent rejection of Google's voice apps. The request to Apple includes two quite fascinating queries:

5. What other applications have been rejected for use on the iPhone and for what reasons? Is there a list of prohibited applications or of categories of applications that is provided to potential vendors/developers? If so, is this posted on the iTunes website or otherwise disclosed to consumers?

6. What are the standards for considering and approving iPhone applications? What is the approval process for such applications (timing, reasons for rejection, appeal process, etc.)? What is the percentage of applications that are rejected? What are the major reasons for rejecting an application?

While some of this information may already be publicly available, most of it most certainly is not. Would it really have hurt Apple to be more forthcoming with this sort of information in the past?

Comment from fattymelt on 2009-08-02

2009-08-02T09:20:10Z

This post reminds me of one of those horrible, factless fear-mongering Fox news reports with the low scratchy voice and dramatic music... "Apple employees... Killing themselves to keep Apples dirty little secrets..."

Your inclusion of the Foxconn suicide as some instantiation of Apple's uniquely secretive culture is disappointing. You know as much as I do about that incident: very little. To suggest that that Apple's culture played a part, any more significantly than another for-profit public company, is baseless.

My activities at work are fairly secretive. Would I kill myself if it were discovered that I had lost or stolen something, no. But more to the point, I wouldn't kill myself if I worked at Apple when the same thing happened. Neither would you. Neither would most people.

Comment from serge.beaumont on 2009-08-02

2009-08-02T09:25:04Z

Comment on the developer vs end user secrecy. I am an end user of Apple products, and have loved it ever since I declined to move to Vista and chose OS X instead. As an end user I have found that Apple's stuff works really well, but when it doesn't, you're pretty much on your own. Or when you have a feature request of Apple software: I don't mind to be told no, but I'd at least like to be *heard*. Apple is opaque to its end users too, I think that point needs to be made.

On the "developer"/not-the-end-user side of things, I have no idea if Apple has any problem hiring people, but given that exact secrecy, relations towards developers, the frequent arrogance of Apple Store personnel, and the total opaqueness of the company I personally perceive Apple as a company that is not a good employer. That perception is probably false, but there's no way to check. I wonder if Apple is not missing out on lots of good talent with this same perception.

I also wonder if Apple's success is built on a few current heroes, but that the whole edifice will crash if they leave. Is Apple's success sustainable in the long run? I have no idea... I find that my attitude has become: love the products of today, but also stand ready to immediately jump off the Apple bandwagon when it goes wrong. That can't be the attitude Apple would like me to have :-).

PS This comment was written on an iPhone ;-)

Comment from steven.devijver on 2009-08-02

2009-08-02T10:44:44Z

In your view of the world Intel is at war with itself as well, although they seem to be doing fine:

http://3.ly/AyY

Comment from nafnosseb on 2009-08-02

2009-08-02T22:12:36Z

Really enjoyed the article, surprised by the antagonism you received in some of the comments.

Comment from zero187 on 2009-08-03

2009-08-03T15:27:20Z

It makes perfect sense as to why they are so secretive. I mean, think about it, they are obviously trying to wipe out the illiterate technology users!

Look at the exploding ipods that we heard about all last month, we all know ipods are garbage (my mp3 player from 10 years ago had more features than my 80gb video ipod - and i don't have to use itunes every time i want to make a new playlist or delete/edit a song) which is why Apple tried to assassinate all the ipod users. I also heard they tried to take out a few of the new iPhone 3gs users as well!

If you don't believe me, look it up, exploding ipods that injured many people!

Comment from msthornton on 2009-08-04

2009-08-04T14:21:01Z

We all need to send a message that we are unsatisfied with the secrecy of the app store rejections, especially around apps that people want the most. We need to let them know we want them to be more transparent. A mass boycott of the app store, itunes, and phone usage (if there are extra charges) would make Apple notice and also make their carriers notice. A day where everyone turns off their phone would make a huge dent in income for the app store and itunes.

Comment from flowerpt.myopenid.com on 2009-08-04

2009-08-05T01:52:54Z

You have good points about secrecy, but that's a symptom of the control problem. I've been a Mac user since I left Windows 3.1 for System 7, have used Linux as a server since shortly after, but my workstations have always been Mac. OSX was a dream-in-theory for me, I was in the developer program for a while, but I began to have bad experiences with 10.4. I started to get the uneasy feeling about the company when they went after the entire class of online journalists, and then Leopard was slipped for iPhone, (and hasn't ever been right), and with the entire closed ecosystem of the iPhone (the first version of which was openly hostile towards open source) I saw the future of Apple. On the hardware side they went from great machines to machines that look good in the showroom but dilute the user experience. I'm not sure when they'll end the Macintosh (5 years?), but for me it was 2009. If anybody wants a gently used MBP, it'll be on eBay soon. I got a great quad-core tower and a netbook, both running linux, to replace it, and the cost is about even. The Linux desktop is decidedly less than OSX, but it's eminently usable and much more powerful in many ways (e.g. keeping two machines in sync is fast and trivial), but more importantly, the open process is such a breath of fresh air compared to filing bugs in RADAR and having them marked 'duplicate, send us e-mails everytime you want a status update'. I'm not saying anything Apple didn't realize when they decided to port to Intel and change their name - the Macintosh won't be beaten by Microsoft, it'll be beaten by obsolescence. To briefly touch on two other points: not to get all Randian on you, but Apple is staffed by people who feel comfortable working there - this isn't a low-wage sweat-shop, most of its employees could get good jobs elsewhere. In that way, it serves a useful function as an accumulator. And regarding the unfortunate incident in China - simple crime explains the situation sufficiently (corporate espionage, murder). While your essay is on-target, I think the psychological aspect of that incident was invented by yellow journalists.

Comment from Sachin on 2009-08-05

2009-08-05T08:45:46Z

I think Steve should read this in public interest and reply back to this post like what he thinks ...Is Apple really gone that sour.........

Sachin

Comment from bac.anh.minh on 2009-08-14

2009-08-15T00:55:51Z

I read this article on NetFlix and it's secrecy. This made me wonder if there was an Apple connection since Wozniak graces the streets of Los Gatos. Sure enough there is a connection.

http://tinyurl.com/nyyl4r

Secrecy is carried out to the extreme.

Comment from mnemonic.fx on 2009-08-21

2009-08-21T09:16:37Z

You can bash, complain, and rant on Apple however you want.

But the fact is lots of iPhone consumers are not smart enough to understand what's wrong with the App Store and its review process.

So, good luck in organizing a boycott.

Let's develop for the Mac instead.