“For the first time in Mac OS X’s history, Apple has presented journalists with a product briefing and prerelease copy of the operating system one week before making it available to developers,” Daniel Eran Dilger reports for AppleInsider. “The company has historically reserved access to its prerelease software exclusively for developers who have signed a Non Disclosure Agreement.”
“For years, Apple remained a minority alternative to Windows, forcing the company to operate under shrouds of secrecy in order to pull off dramatic product unveilings that its competitors couldn’t immediately copy,” Dilger reports. “However, with the five year head start in mobile devices afforded by iOS, as well as its commanding lead in PC sales growth, Apple is now in a clear leadership position for unveiling product strategies.”
“Apple’s NDA policies for Mac OS X Lion were largely just preventing journalists from commenting on the product while allowing the public (often led by Apple’s detractors) to critically examine it, without a full understanding of what the changes meant. Apple’s NDA also prevented developers from commenting on the new software until it was released,” Dilger reports. “For Mountain Lion, Apple has turned down its legendary secrecy a notch and has instead started promoting its software the same way it has promoted hardware since the iPhone, offering journalists an early and curated demonstration of its features.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lava_Head_UK” for the heads up.]
Probably very little point in secrecy. The features are basically only new to Macs, it’s not as if anything much is going to be let out of the bag.
What’s really funny about this is that the headline broke without a single rumor about it first. I did a double-take when I got the notification on my iPhone.
No shit Red Ryder! These journos were treated to one-on-one sessions last week and must’ve had to sign in blood as nothing was said. Well, of course, Gizmodo probably wasn’t on the invite list. I was totally blown away myself when I started reading the news a couple of hours ago, starting with Gruber’s detailed write-up about his session with Schiller.
When your stock drops $35 in one day, you have to do something positive!
??? Apple finished up by $5 today. Yesterday, it was down by about $15. In percentage points, this was all within 2-3%. There were very many days, throughout the years, where Apple went down by much more than 3% in a single day.
Apple never ever cared about its day-to-day (nor week-to-week; nor month-to-month) stock value.
I don’t know what stock you’re talking about. My Apple stock has gone up $90.98 per share since January 3, 2012.
Yes, im sure they timed this release with the one day the stock went down a couple percentage points. They are clearly desperate and in trouble.
(head –> desk)
I think the key difference now is all these new features in Mountain Lion are linked to iCloud. Think about it for a minute; iMessage is rapidly becoming more popular, there are now over 316 MILLION iOS devices, I’d say 80-90% will be iMessage capable.
How many Apple IDs does Apple have now? When 10.8 is released all people need to do is sign into iCloud with their Apple ID on their Mountain Lion Mac and they instantly have free seamless access to all the features of iCloud on iOS.
It’s now an advantage for Apple to promote all these new features in Mountain Lion because the directly relate to iCloud pickup. And we all know the cloud is the future 😉
And there is SIRI code here in the preview too… hurray
Nice
I suspect the change is due less to Apple’s “clear leadership position” than it does to Steve Jobs no longer being the leader.
I hope there is a logic behind changing things from the way Apple has successfully operated for years. Maybe because this isn’t a major upgrade it was considered OK.
Then there’s that sneaky factor whereby Microsoft gets a good look at its Windows 8 competition, has a ‘Romney’ and further delays their release trying to come up with a ripoff equivalent.
You are on the money. I might even bet that Apple, knowing Microcruft’s propensities, is deliberately doing this preview to thumb their eyes, and foul up their Windows 8 development calendar.