Why all the Apple secrecy?

aphex

Moderator<br>All Things Apple
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Jul 19, 2001
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Apple always seems to be keen on keeping things a secret until the absolute last minute, why do you think that is?

the iphone is a great example, no details at all about this Supposed $20-40 per month plan
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
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It's just part of the marketing. It's similar in other niches, but not usually to this extent. They cater to Mac fanboys who anxiously await even the rumor of a new product. They get hyped up about "X" product then buy it in droves. They also like to unveil fancy stuff to the public. The sole reason the iPhone was announced early was that the FCC makes their data public, so it was either Apple or the FCC who would have announced it first. Also, Steve Jobs is more or less the heart of the company and runs things in a very specific way.

Just take it with a grain of salt and enjoy it. It's kind of fun. I'm a Mac fan but not overly so...I can say it's kind of like watching movie trailers, it's fun to get excited about new things :)
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
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Sep 15, 2004
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I think that the best reason is because Jobs seems to be a bit of a megalomaniac (a bit?) and has to have things his way. It is not unheard of for him to completely change a product weeks before launch because someone pissed him off. A few years ago, ATi announced that they were providing graphics cards for the PowerMac and "Something Else" which was the G4 Cube. This happened the day before a major keynote, at which Jobs announced "Nvidia is our primary graphics provider" It was apparently months before ATi could even get a secretary on the phone.
 

gwag

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Feb 25, 2004
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Since they lead the industry why on earth would they want to give up the goods 6 months early?
 

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
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Originally posted by: gwag
Since they lead the industry why on earth would they want to give up the goods 6 months early?

They don't always lead the industry. They implemented Santa Rosa behind most of the other bigs. Admittedly they did bring LED backlighting to 15" first. There have been other places where they were the first to implement something.

I think that they were the first to move to an almost all USB setup. Whereas even today you have the other bigs providing PS/2 mice or keyboards on some of their systems.

But, they have been late in the game in providing solid state drives in their systems, and I am not sure when they are going to do that.
 

randomlinh

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Oct 9, 1999
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Originally posted by: TheStu
But, they have been late in the game in providing solid state drives in their systems, and I am not sure when they are going to do that.

I wouldn't say late to the game just yet. The extra cost is still insane.. even for mac users. And for not that much more benefit IMO for the masses. Suited well for something like a "tablet" but even that has yet to be really big.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
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Originally posted by: randomlinh
Originally posted by: TheStu
But, they have been late in the game in providing solid state drives in their systems, and I am not sure when they are going to do that.

I wouldn't say late to the game just yet. The extra cost is still insane.. even for mac users. And for not that much more benefit IMO for the masses. Suited well for something like a "tablet" but even that has yet to be really big.

It's not late - it's ridiculously early in the game for Apple to be providing SSDs for their machines. A 16gb SSD laptop SATA drive is over $800 right now. Tiger alone takes up like 5 gigs on the stock install. You can almost buy a whole MacBook for the price of that drive. If you want larger, the 64gb model is over $3,500. And what benefits do they offer? They're not much faster than current drives (slower in some cases!). They're definitely not bigger than current drives. They don't improve battery life much (only about 20 minutes from the tests I've read). They're silent, but then so are modern drives (I can't hear any of my Seagates!). The only real plus right now is the lack of heat, which isn't even a big issue for many laptops. Here's an Anandtech article on a 16gb model from Super Talent. Makes for some good reading!
 

shortylickens

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Jul 15, 2003
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I think I prefer the Apple philosophy to the 3D Realms philosphy.
"Duke Nukem Forever!!!!......... eventually."