The point of "stealth mode" is timing. You can gain significant market advantage by springing the surprise on your (potential) competitors instead of giving the

The point of "stealth mode" is timing. You can gain significant market advantage by springing the surprise on your (potential) competitors instead of giving them X months advance notice of your plans and ideas. Prominent recent example: ipad 2010. It was rumored alright, still I bet it led to significant constipation at Plastic Logic, Microsoft, or Amazon, not to mention all those netbook builders. To think that Plastic Logic thought they could get away with a price point of more than the iPad's 500 USD for a mere reading device... Now they are scrambling, and perhaps they will find a viable strategy in the future, but still, they are all "behind the curve", and that has as much to do with Apple's execution as with the fact that Apple didn't announce its plans for the iPad 18 months before introduction.