How Apple Orchestrates Controlled Leaks, and Why

Lanxon writes "'I was a Senior Marketing Manager at Apple and I was instructed to do some controlled leaks,' confesses John Martellaro. Monday's article at the Wall Street Journal, which provided confirmation of an Apple tablet device, had all the earmarks of a controlled leak. Here's how Apple does it. Often Apple has a need to let information out, unofficially. The company has been doing that for years, and it helps preserve Apple's consistent, official reputation for never talking about unreleased products. The way it works is that a senior exec will come in and say, 'We need to release this specific information. John, do you have a trusted friend at a major outlet? If so, call him/her and have a conversation. Idly mention this information and suggest that if it were published, that would be nice. No e-mails!'"

Another Apple Trick

[eldavojohn]

Say Jobs wants to fire someone but he doesn't want to lose them to another company. So he calls up the manager or whoever and asks him to do a 'controlled leak' for him via cellphone at Devil's Slough near Cupertino and wants to meet him there at 3am but come alone and no e-mails, no mention of this to anyone, no sort of traceability just to cover our asses because, hey, this is a controlled leak, right? But he asks the guy to stop at a random pub and buy Steve a bottle of their finest alcohol.

So the guy shows up and there's Steve walking along the railroad tracks above Devil's Slough. Well, when the guy approaches him, Steve hands him a cell phone and takes the bottle of liquor. Depending on how much Steve likes the bottle of liquor is how Steve proceeds next. If he likes it, he lets the man realize the cellphone is just an iPhone shell and Steve embraces him as Steve injects him with pentobarbital and gently lets him fall to his death in the slough. Now if Steve doesn't like the bottle, he pulls out his chic white iDesert Eagle and puts one in the back of each of the guy's legs gangland style. Then he usually taunts and complains about the bottle the guy brought him before roundhousing him to the head off the railroad tracks. He usually finishes it with a really bad hollywood-esque pun (ex. "consider your employment terminated!") and holds the gun sideways to look badass. Either way the guy just becomes a faceless statistic of people who drank too much at a bar and were mugged on their way home. And since it was a 'controlled leak' no one knows about it.

It's all true. Reiser tried but failed to open source the model. And that time Jobs looked cancer thin? He had actually just gotten back from a two week stint in Devil's Slough after a botched termination turned into a Most Dangerous Game where the hunter became the hunted.

Is this before or after...

[Anonymous Coward]

you purchased more Apple stock?

Re:Another Apple Trick

[elrous0]

Flamebait mods? Cult members are nothing if not humorless.

Re:Still waiting...

[armanox]

I'm waiting for the iPhone Shuffle.

I will need some help with this.

[starbugs]

All we need to do is create a leak for a fictional (but desirable) product. Slowly release blurry mock-ups and specs. Start a few rumors here and there. Then (as long as everyone stays positive) we let Apple deal with the actual implementation.

I'm awaiting my DRM-free ireader. (Apple, you can do it so much better)

Re:duh?

[elrous0]

With all these flamebait mods, I can't help but picture a legion of hipster-wannabe Mac fanboys with mod points glaring at their MacBook screens, caressing their iPhones like rosaries, all mumbling "How DARE they insult Father Steve!!!" in unison in every juice bar in America.

Re:More like applie

[binarylarry]

It's great how much bigger companies do this, here's a transcript I recorded recently:

for(;;) {
Informant Exec: So online mag, this is totally off the record, but we're thinking about cloning something Apple is doing.
Online Mag: O RLY?
Informant Exec: Yeah, it's going to totally fucking kill Apple.
Online Mag: Wow, that sounds amazing, what is is?
Informant Exec: It's kind of like the iPhone only much more innovative
Online Mag: Sounds like it's really going to change the market, any other projects you're working on?
Information Exec: Yeah, we're also talking about cloning some stuff Google is doing.
Online Mag: O RLY?
Informant Exec: Yeah, it's going to totally fucking kill Google.
Online Mag: Wow, that sounds amazing, what is is?
Informant Exec: It's kind of like Google search only much more innovative
Online Mag: Sounds like it's really going to change the market, any other projects you're working on?
}

Re:Still waiting...

[Xenious]

If they were released during the winter i'd say that is the dance you do to keep warm waiting outside in line to buy one.

It's a swipe to the right
type in that PIN
search for your app (there's one for that)
let the fun begin

It's the iPhone Shuffle

Re:duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget in every coffee shop, community college, and Arts buildings of many universities around the world.

Re:duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a MacBook Pro, jerk.

MacBooks are for wanna-bes.

Re:duh?

[3dr]

I'm caressing my iphone at an oxygen bar, you insensitive clod.

News just in..

[Anonymous Coward]

Bears: Wanton woodland defeacation shock
Pope: Catholic?

Re:Still waiting...

[should_be_linear]

I am waiting for iScored :-(

Re:duh?

[0xdeadbeef]

At least when Apple announces anything, you know you can order it from the Apple store the next day.

The iPhone was announced on January 9, 2007. It went on sale on June 29, 2007.

But hey, don't let a little thing like reality get in the way of your faith.

Re:Still waiting...

[Arthur Grumbine]

I have a couple friends who have the iPhone Shuffle. If by iPhone Shuffle you are talking about that the condition where one slowly ambles aimlessly around while waiting for their videos, etc. to load over AT&T's overly-congested-doesn't-even-begin-to-describe-it network. It's very tragic to watch.

Faith

[formfeed]

Exactly: faith. And because of that you shouldn't criticize the Appleologists. If they think that walking around in black turtle necks holding up shiny white things while worshiping a Deity they call Steve, will bring sense and purpose to their existence, let them proceed. This way they at least don't bother the rest of us normal people or interfere in our quest to improve Linux, which He has given to us.

Re:Still waiting...

[tchdab1]

You mean the phone with one button that dials a random number in your phonebook?