8 ms·

Ask HN: How does Apple achieve both secrecy and quality for a release?

• lewisjoe 5y ago
  My (opinionated) take on how this is possible: - Apple has practically unlimited money - The company can afford the best of the planet's talent - The companies business is ethical and therefore the top layer of talent hesitant to join ad-based companies pick Apple naturally - The company is highly design driven, which means it's the perfectionists making most decisions (roughly speaking) All this seems to have a cultural impact that optimizes for quality without much a/b testing.
  • wodenokoto 5y ago
    It's also infamous for relatively low pay and a culture of brutal overworking, and during the jobs years, seemingly a fear of the CEO.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • jarjoura 5y ago
      They also do not invest in their workforce the way other Bay Area companies do. For example, they do not really encourage engineers to grow outside hired abilities and make it almost impossible to find time to work on anything except the Radars (tasks) put in front of you. Plenty of managers would proudly say out-loud they would prefer someone go build a new skillset outside of Apple and then come back. (This is jokingly referred to as your "next tour of duty" as many engineers actually do come back.) They also make it challenging to switch teams internally, you basically compete for the same role an external candidate would, and you interview as if you were an external candidate. All of that makes it very easy to get burnt out and so either you are someone bought into the "cult" of Apple and couldn't see yourself working anywhere else, or you peace-out once the rose-colored glasses come off.
    • viro 5y ago
      low pay?
      • Apocryphon 5y ago
        Compared to other FAANG. They will match high offers, but will not go out of their way to set particularly high comps.
  • obarthelemy 5y ago
    I Lolled. Highly ethical ? They're China's lapdogs (Google left China). Also they're the ones who don't want to pay employees for the time they spend being searched, nor acknowledge when their platform or their customers have a virus. Design-driven ? They're the ones with keyboards with a 30% failure rate and $500 repair cost. (They're PR and financials driven). They certainly have unlimited money, and have shown they're not afraid to sue, and bully, or reward compliance.
    • minerva23 5y ago
      They market ethics, and like most things they market, the claims are often misleading or exaggerated. That said, of the companies who market their ethics, Apple seems to actually _do_ more than most.
    • scarface74 5y ago
      Google didn’t leave China for any ethical reason.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • Terry_Roll 5y ago
    Their cult graphic designer following in the 90's and 00's and insistence on top spec hardware has helped them enormously because that cult group following is intrinsically linked to the media sector and thats helped then enormously because I've never known of anyone to bad mouth Apple as a result, but Google and Microsoft, thats different. They became the premium product manufacturer in IT.
• Apreche 5y ago
  Money
• guessmyname 5y ago
  It is relatively simple: strong Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs). One of my previous employers worked with Apple a couple of years ago to ensure the stability and security of Apple Arcade, and every employee, even the janitor, needed to sign an extensive NDA to ensure the secrecy of the project. We kept “the secret” for six (6) months or so, and at one point we almost lose the contract because someone mentioned the project’s name during a phone call, at home, while a family member was listening, and that person told someone else, and that someone apparently talked about it somewhere and Apple found out. Fortunately, the CEO managed to, somehow, keep the contract. Even inside Apple, they have to sign NDAs when you need to talk with a different team about a new product, project, feature, etc. I asked about it during recent interviews (January 2022) to join a team that is supposed to have massive cross-team work with the entire engineering organization.
  • fomine3 5y ago
    I read this funny article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-big-a-the-fruit-company-why-the-maker-of-iphones-must-not-be-named-11646407471 https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-big-a-the-fruit-company-w...
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • ffhhj 5y ago
    > strong Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs). https://www.computerworld.com/article/2468894/cops-raid-home-of-gizmodo-blogger-over-leaked-iphone.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2468894/cops-raid-home...
  • nebula8804 5y ago
    And yet we have had an avalanche of leaks about their car project (and even the fact that it existed, then didn't, and now apparently exists again). This plus all the product leaks makes me think we should be giving the leakers a lot more credit.
• shamino 5y ago
  Interests align - those who keep the secrets are better off for keeping them (not just for punishment of breaking NDAs, but the fruits (pun intended) of revealing something wonderful).
  • bredren 5y ago
    Apple TV+ has a show about this.
    • Austin_Conlon 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severance_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severance_(TV_series)
    • specialist 5y ago
      Ya, very r/oddlyspecific.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• turnsout 5y ago
  This is from conversations with friends at Apple over the years. Apple employees: please confirm/complicate! - Secrecy does actually get in the way. It's not great when you aren't aware of large features or products that will impact your work. - Apple hires people who have great product design instincts, and even end-users know Apple's foundational design principles. However, lack of feedback from end-users does occasionally bite them (see: aborted Safari redesign) - Apple takes QA very seriously and invests in high quality QA engineers. QA is not just "a step in the process" or a marginalized outsourced group. - It's a culture of accountability, not committees. Every product and feature has a DRI (Directly Responsible Individual). When something isn't working out, the first question is "who's the DRI on this?" - Most of the organization is highly siloed by function. This allows units to focus entirely on their objectives, which can be productive. But it makes cross-functional collaboration rare. In my opinion, this is why certain aspects of Apple's ecosystem feel disjointed, missing, or don't hang together holistically as well as they could.
  • deepsun 5y ago
    > When something isn't working out, the first question is "who's the DRI on this?" Wow. Every company in SF Bay area I worked at stressed that they don't look for who's to blame, but on how to solve the issue.
    • jaywalk 5y ago
      In many cases, the first step in "how to solve the issue" is "who is responsible for this?" It doesn't have to have anything to do with blame.
      • SkyMarshal 5y ago
        Yes, as in who knows this component more in-depth than anyone else in the company and is best able to solve any problem with it?
    • bberenberg 5y ago
      I think there is a clear difference between being responsible for something, and being blamed for something. There may also be overlap. My experience has been the anti blame culture (which is a good thing) has been twisted into a lack of ownership and responsibility in some orgs (which is a bad thing).
• galogon 5y ago
  Apple is the biggest company on earth and out of the FAANG companies, they are the most prestigious place to work. Their market cap is on it's way to 10 Trillion. There's very little incentive for people to jeopardize this job and give up their stock in the company.
  • cobaltoxide 5y ago
    > Apple is the biggest company on earth Hardly. It is number six on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r... And does not even appear on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers > they are the most prestigious place to work Eh, that doesn't seem to be a universally accepted point of view.
    • gnicholas 5y ago
      I think GP was talking about market cap, not number of employees.
    • fumar 5y ago
      I don't know why you are downvoted. I agree. Personal experience says that Apple is not a great place to work at for PMs. I am curious to hear other folks chime in to round out the discussion.
    • 1986 5y ago
      And yet, it's number 1 on this list, which is linked from both of the lists you linked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_corporations_by_market_capitalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_corporations_by...
    • scarface74 5y ago
      Revenue is not a measure of success. It’s about how much you keep - profit.
  • jensensbutton 5y ago
• choppaface 5y ago
  Apple has extensive indoor private test facilities. Like strip malls, but each shop is a testing ground. Imagine being paid to go hang out at the mall all day. Yea you’ll sign an NDA for that. In addition to the NDAs, Apple tracks employee data very closely (e.g. iCloud) to mitigate leaks. The major downside to this approach is the sample size cannot be “internet scale” and it will be biased towards what Apple thinks it knows. That’s why things like Apple Maps and Siri had such poor roll-outs.
  • galoisscobi 5y ago
    > In addition to the NDAs, Apple tracks employee data very closely (e.g. iCloud) to mitigate leaks. Intriguing! Could you elaborate more on this?
• ineedasername 5y ago
  I think part of it is that, sure, leaked iPhone spec's will always get some attention, but it's nowhere near as big a deal as the first few iPhones or other new product launches. News of the next minor evolution of iPhone spec's probably aren't profitable enough to devote resources to fretting them out. I think we're past the point where (for established products) it's as big a deal as when Gizmodo got a hold of a pre release.
• tinus_hn 5y ago
  Microsoft does not have this culture of secrecy but makes it practically impossible to report issues. I don’t see why Apple would do worse than them.
• kirbyfan64sos 5y ago
  They don't do as well with hardware, due to lack of wide testing: https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1504449580595040258 https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1504449580595040258 > Since they want to keep new hardware support a secret, they work on it in parallel on another branch / whatever. So all the betas only include a subset of the changes going into the real release. And then when the -RC drops, they merge major changes, especially around boot/HW.
• 2ion 5y ago
  Rather than this being a special quality of Apple, I think the marketing strategy of a lot of other B2C brands has now involved """leaks""" to enthusiast circles for a long time, probably since """evangelists""" and """influencers""" became subjects of pop consumer culture --- so I think that Apple leaking not less but the others just leaking intentionally more info ahead of release to fuel the hype is an important factor at play here. I don't wish to comment on the "and quality" part in your question though.
  • layer8 5y ago
    The leaks generally aren’t intentional: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/07/16/apple-warns-leakers-to-stop/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/07/16/apple-warns-leakers-to-...
• xadhominemx 5y ago
  I don’t think they do. Hardware specs/features are almost always broadly known well before the announcement.
• thehoagie 5y ago
  The short answer? $2T can buy a lot of secrecy and extensive QA. The long answer is I don't think either of these statements are necessarily true? Apple products usually leak before their official launch. And as for quality while generally ok... Apple has had some poor launches including: Apple Maps, Safari on Windows, butterfly keyboard mechanisms. And other issues are user unfriendly product design like the mouse that has as charging port on the bottom rendering it unusable. And still more quality issues stem from lack of transparency like Battery Gate. I personally think Apple has a strong fanbase that overlooks these issues and is quick to forget
  • dimitrios1 5y ago
    > I personally think Apple has a strong fanbase that overlooks these issues and is quick to forget Apple has a strong core of two users, in my opinion - people who couldn't give a shit less about the actual software, the UX, or whatever else it provides, they just know that it can take photos, browse the internet, and that Apple products are associated to "premium" and they want to be premium. This trickles down to the younger generation through their favorite movie stars, singers, tiktok influencers all use Iphones, so they want to use Iphones. The "rich" kids at school have Iphones and if they see you have the green bubble instead of the blue Imessage bubble in group chat, you'll get made fun of. (I just had this exact scenario happen with one of my friend's daughter, who took my old Iphone 8+ off my hands to replace their Galaxy) - users who have grown to realize all consumer tech is essentially trash, and recognize the marginal utility that Apple products uniquely offer: namely the fact that their products have resaleability, have a pretty well connected ecosystem, and at the end of the day, a physical store near you that you can take your product to. I am in the latter boat, having used PCs my entire life, modding custom setups, rolling my own linux distros, installing the latest de-googled android OS, logitech, the 40 brands of headphones and headsets, and all of that fun (miserable) stuff. You could tell me right now the latest X1 carbon is 994234% faster than my M1 mac, with a graphics card capable of running the latest AAA games, and I wouldn't give a shit. I just don't give a shit anymore. I want something that will work 99% of the time, and let me do my job wherever. Apple products have done that for me much more often than when I relied on whatever other amalgamations of Dells/Samsungs/Lennovos/Blackberrys/etc, whether its getting frustrated with wifi connectivity, not having my passwords or photos sync across devices, or fumbling with bluetooth headsets and devices from god knows how many vendors and companies. Give me an Iphone, a Mac, some Airpods and I will deal with whatever minor inconveniences like having to charge my mouse upside down.
• mdoms 5y ago
  The only Apple product I use is MacOS so perhaps you have a different perspective, but their operating system releases are of shockingly poor quality. My workplace has a blanket ban on installing the latest OS releases because of all the problems they cause. And of course this ban isn't enforced by group policies because that's not even possible in this ecosystem, so they end up having to deal with the fallout regardless.
  • Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
    "Don't buy/install the first version of any Apple product" has been a universal law since the 90s. The M1 is the only release I can remember that bucks that.
  • nebula8804 5y ago
    Have you used Windows recently?
    • mdoms 5y ago
      Yes. I don't know what that has to do with MacOS quality...?
  • plorkyeran 5y ago
    You can block devices enrolled in a MDM from upgrading to new macOS versions.
• jedberg 5y ago
  Fear. They make a big deal about punishing leakers to make people fear what will happen if they leak. Also control. Here is a story I heard from an iPad launch partner, who got an iPad before it was announced: The device arrived in a large box with little plungers sticking out to press the buttons and the screen. You couldn't actually see the device inside, so there was no way to know what buttons were on it, what its dimensions or weight were, etc. Furthermore the box had to be kept in a locked room with strict access controls. Anyone who had access to the room had to be under draconian NDA that included severe personal penalties for leaking anything (like enough to financially ruin you). Also everything was watermarked so you couldn't release photos without them knowing exactly where it came from. The box was taken back and replaced with a standard consumer model after the launch. Most people in the company weren't even aware they were a launch partner until after the announcement.
• tw600040 5y ago
  To do that in software is one thing. To pull that off in Cars is quite crazy.
• meerita 5y ago
  Although they have secrecy, it's nothing compared with the years 1999-2008. After Jobs, the company practically couldn't hold any secret. We know in advance how the next iPhone will be, all the components, even things like mac OS or other hardware is easily known in advance. To me, the beginning of the end it was with the iPhone 4 era, that's when the company started to get careless with her movements and way of operating
• textadventure 5y ago
  For those too young to remember (or who may have just missed the news when it happened, since it wasn't mentioned yet in this thread), in 2010 the iPhone 4 was leaked before the release, physically, an employee left it in the bathroom of a bar. Someone found it, tried to return it to Apple, they didn't take it seriously and so this person turned to Gizmodo to make a quick buck: https://www.fastcompany.com/1621516/iphone-4-leak-saga-start-finish https://www.fastcompany.com/1621516/iphone-4-leak-saga-start... They haven't had a leak that big ever since, but occasionally things have gotten leaked (specs, components being used, etc) from China who does most of the manufacturing.
• aledalgrande 5y ago
  I think that the secrecy at Apple is ridiculous. I interviewed for them and they couldn't even tell me they were working on the launch of a CI/CD product. Like, come on. That's not exactly spaceship tech.
• dandigangi 5y ago
  I'll never forget the time I walked into Cupertino wearing Google Glass when they were close to releasing the iPhone 6 (big screen one) and I was escorted off the property. Lol
• axg11 5y ago
  One aspect I haven't seen mentioned in other comments is that secrecy and control is part of the core Apple culture, in a positive way. Out of all the big tech co's, Apple has the strongest brand and marketing. They have built an image on good design and high quality products (this is the perception, even if you dispute the reality). They have carefully built this image over the years by releasing products very deliberately, not focused on the tech or specs inside but instead focused on the product as a whole. Controlling the narrative _requires_ secrecy during development. Every person who joins Apple today is well aware of the culture and how it has contributed to Apple's success. They have every incentive to maintain that secretive culture to continue the success.