Spencer Uresk wrote:
Is there some value in keeping stuff like this secret that I'm
missing, or is this simply a case of a culture of secrecy that has
maybe gone a little too far?
Given that Apple globally hits my nerves, I think that we have to
distinguish between two cases:
1. When we're talking about a new product, as the rumored
iTablet-or-what-else, I find that the secrecy is legitimate. They're
probably introducing new ideas and technologies and are just protecting
their work from being copied by competitors; additionally, marketing
strategies are carefully picked, they are expensive, and can be
jeopardized by a leak (*). I'd sum up that when they're going to release
a new product, secrecy is legitimate.
2. Things are completely different when we're talking about supporting
others' technologies, such as Java 6. There are no news here, as
everybody knows that would be inside the product, and there's just very
scarce innovation in Apple's Java editions (I mean, for instance there's
no specific integration with new technologies such as Grand Central, and
even the look and feel integration is superior in third parties'
products, such as Quaqua). For a while I tried to find a bit of logic
reasoning behind this, and I thought that it was bound to the idea of
keeping their hands free; in other words, they could be working in this
moment to Java 7, but if they later decide that they don't want to
support it they don't have to give to people any explanation. I had to
change my mind after the drop of ZFS from Snow Leopard: they introduced
a read only version of ZFS in Leopard and even put a full open source
customized version on their forge; while it lacks many integrations with
Mac OS X (e.g. the Finder, trashes etc...) at a certain point a release
started to work pretty well. So it was clear that they were working on
it - contrast this with the complete secrecy of their Java 6 support.
Still, when Snow Leopard came out, ZFS was dropped and the project on
the forge removed all of a sudden. Of course, no public communication
about the rationale. This means that they think they can change their
mind at any time even when facts seemed to confirm their commitment. So
I'd only say that their attitude is plain arrogance. They can afford it
since most of the business comes from fashion industry (iPhone) where
sells are guaranteed by masses of fanboys. Every corporate get arrogant
if it can afford to be.
(*) I suspect that some leaks are driven by Apple itself as they have a
great teasing effect on fanboys.
--
Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect, Project Manager
Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere."
weblogs.java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici - www.tidalwave.it/people
[email protected]
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