Great post this morning by Dave Mark on The Loop called iWatch speculation, where he cites James Gill’s Why Would Apple make a watch? Gill said:
Not long after Tim Cook took over as full time CEO, he made a promise: “We’re going to double down on secrecy.” A few years on from that comment, it seems, as with most of Tim’s public comments, that it was more than just empty marketing speak. From the completely redesigned iOS 7 in 2013, to the launch of a whole new programming language, Swift, at this years WWDC, to the announcements that are about to be unveiled, Apple are tighter lipped and appear to be more controlled than ever.
To which Mark added:
So much has been written about the iWatch, but have you seen even one leaked image? If Apple does indeed announce an iWatch tomorrow, full credit must go to Tim Cook’s ability to keep his “double down on secrecy” promise.
What if Tim Cook’s quip, “We’re going to double down on secrecy” turned out to be a brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed corporate plan?
Doubling down on secrecy probably didn’t mean that everything would be kept secret.
Perhaps Tim Cook’s approach to secrecy is pragmatic: really try to keep secret the things that don’t involve the supply chain, and not worry so much about the details leaking on stuff that other companies are manufacturing in mass quantities. If that’s the case, he may be succeeding beyond the wildest dreams of his fans and his critics.
What will be most interesting to me is if there are reveals tomorrow about aspects of things previously discussed at WWDC that they managed to keep secret while third-party developers were working with the announced aspects of the APIs.
Don’t be surprised if a few developers had access to some of these previously-hidden API or internal hardware details, and will have been working with them under lock-and-key on the Apple campus somewhere.