I think the intent of this message was to admit failure internally only. It was a corporate email, not a press release. There's a fertile grey area between the

I think the intent of this message was to admit failure internally only. It was a corporate email, not a press release. There's a fertile grey area between the top-secret internal email and the press release, ranging from deliberately dropping a copy of your "top-secret" email on the floor of a journalist's office to deliberately sending the email to a bunch of people who are known to be bad at keeping secrets. Apple's pretty good at keeping secrets. When something leaks out of Apple within 24 hours I tend to assume that it had some assistance. I think the diplomatic wording is another clue that Jobs, at the very least, doesn't care that this email got out.