I've heard a lot of people talk about how secretive Apple is, but I've never actually seen an article on it. Until now. The New York Times has an article from June 22, 2009 regarding how incredibly secretive Apple really is... truly interesting stuff here.

So, here are some little bits from the article. I'd love to hear your thoughts on all this... do you think being this hush hush about things is an advantage for a company or is it its eventual downfall? 

“They make everyone super, super paranoid about security,” said Mark Hamblin, who worked on the touch-screen technology for thei Phone and left Apple last year. “I have never seen anything else like it at another company.”

Even senior officials at Apple fear crossing Mr. Jobs. One official, who is normally more open, when asked for a deep-background briefing about Mr. Jobs’s health after the news of the transplant had become public, replied: “Just can’t do it. Too sensitive.”

Secrecy at Apple is not just the prevailing communications strategy; it is baked into the corporate culture. Employees working on top-secret projects must pass through a maze of security doors, swiping their badges again and again and finally entering a numeric code to reach their offices, according to one former employee who worked in such areas.

Work spaces are typically monitored by security cameras, this employee said. Some Apple workers in the most critical product-testing rooms must cover up devices with black cloaks when they are working on them, and turn on a red warning light when devices are unmasked so that everyone knows to be extra-careful, he said.

Regis McKenna, a well-known Silicon Valley marketing veteran who advised Apple on its media strategy in its early days, said the culture of secrecy had its origin in the release of the first Macintosh, which competitors like Microsoft and Sony knew about before it was unveiled.

“It really started around trying to keep the surprise aspect to product launches, which can have a lot of power,” Mr. McKenna said.

He added: “But what most people don’t understand is that Steve has always been very personal about his life. He has always kept things close to the vest since I’ve known him, and only confided in relatively few people.”

“They don’t communicate. It’s a total black box,” said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray who has covered Apple for the last five years.

Check out the FULL ARTICLE here.

Thoughts anyone? Really, with all the media outlets these days, it has to be difficult to really keep things secret. Would you like to work for a company that was that wrapped up in secrecy and that crazy about it all? Not sure I would.