Apple’s secret to secrecy.

One has to wonder whether or not Apple’s obsession with secrecy always works in its favour. With all the rumours that fly around creating spectacular swabs of hype, many may find that the real thing – be it a product or software upgrade – is not as breath taking as what was expected. One thing is for sure, at least Apple get a good idea of what their customers are dreaming of. But what started it all?
The New York Times recently featured an article on Apple’s history covering many of their procedures to keep secrets, well, secret! What triggered the article was Steve Jobs keeping his liver transplant secret, even from his investors. What The New York Times discovered was that Apple’s culture is steeped in secrecy with employees who work on top level projects having to pass through a maze of security doors, swiping their badges many times over before using their secret key code to reach their office. However, they are still not in the clear as each work space is monitored by security cameras. Apple goes as far as insisting that staff who work in the most critical product-testing rooms must cover up the products they are working on and turn on a red warning light when devices are uncovered so that others know to be on the alert for unauthorised colleagues snooping around.
Apart from keeping things secret, misinformation is often fed to staff members to try and track down the source of leaks as well as deliberately releasing rumours to make the pool of rumours even murkier.

While the strategy has worked well for Apple in the past, the lack of transparency may come back to bite them if investors get tired of the antics.