Apple and the Scalability of Secrecy 155
RobotsDinner writes "Anil Dash has a thoughtful exploration of Apple's notorious devotion to secrecy, and argues that not only is there a limit to its feasibility, but that recent events show Apple has reached that limit already. '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.'"
Re:I bought an ipod touch today, it's going back. (Score:5, Informative)
Openness where are you?
Android?
Re:I bought an ipod touch today, it's going back. (Score:5, Informative)
I run Linux too. I just "activated" it with a friend's Windows machine. Then you can use it completely without iTunes, including the downloading of songs/apps. Don't give up so easily, it's a good product.
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:sometimes secrecy is necessary (Score:3, Informative)
You can replace the battery, it's just not simple. No need to throw it out. And all iPods use simple databases maintained by a desktop application (usually iTunes), so you can't simply copy mp3 files to them.
iPods are not open devices. They're usually not the best choice for hackers.
Secrecy won't protect AAPL forever (Score:3, Informative)
The day that a blackhat finds a hole on a virgin iPhoneOS image that gets exploited to spread a nasty worm will be the day that millions of AAPL fans will feel sunk and betrayed that Apple didn't coddle and protect them.
For the private domain, that might be the only thing that throws much of Apple's secrecy policy out the window. They would have to in order to save their unblemished reputation.
Either that, or AAPL installs iNortonAV for free on all mobile devices much like what Windows users deal with (an AV client that takes up 2GB of flash and steals 50% of your CPU cycles while it scans for trojans in your 3G packets while taking a call from your grandma)
Re:Not Scalability, Marketability (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I bought an ipod touch today, it's going back. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wow! (Score:3, Informative)
Imho the secrecy helped them with new product designs and new product categories (e.g. the iPhone and the putative Mac Tablet), but the radio silence that precedes a little tweak in hardware specs is pretty stupid. People catch on it too -- all the fanboys who clamored for "one more thing" and got nothing did notice -- google for [WWDC boring] and see. But I suppose the continued secrecy helps build the Apple mystique.
Re:I bought an ipod touch today, it's going back. (Score:3, Informative)
Apple has historically BOASTED about their closedness.
The original Macintosh came in a sealed box, and was dubbed 'Hacker Proof' (in the classic sense of people who like access to their stuff) at all the early Press Events. The machine was introduced as a reaction to and against, those of us with our Osbornes and TRS-80's and all the other machines that were thriving in an open community. Then Apple nailed the point down further by suing anybody else who dared adopt a GUI, wiping out all the small players and essentially creating Microsoft's monopoly for them (it took Microsoft and HP's legal heft to come out with a GUI operating system 'for the rest of us.' The small competitors like GEM were run out of the market.)