Letters to Steve_ Inside the E-Mail Inbox of Apple's Steve Jobs - Mark Milian [9]
Steve’s position, when it comes to disseminating information about upcoming products before they’re ready, has changed over the years. According to Steve: “There used to be a saying at Apple. Isn’t it funny: a ship that leaks from the top.” He was, of course, referring to his younger days when he was unable to cork his excitement about new products and initiatives. He freely gave away information about Apple’s plans before the company was ready. In the third act, the top leak was well under control, but the vessel formed pinholes along the hull.
Apple executives took secrecy to the extreme at times. Some believe Steve arranged sting operations in which his team planted fake projects for team members suspected of distributing trade secrets. In 2006, a phone with a slide-out keyboard and dual batteries, which was leaked to Web celebrity Kevin Rose, is likely one of those bogus projects. Another faux initiative, called Asteroid, which involved Apple audio equipment that would supposedly interface with the GarageBand software, was tipped to Nicholas Ciarelli, a.k.a. Nick dePlume, the sole blogger for Think Secret. Nicholas successfully and reliably broke news about some significant Apple products before their official unveilings, including the Mac Mini and iWork software suite. His website consistently disclosed Apple’s secrets, prompting Apple to send him cease-and-desist letters and file civil action against Think Secret, along with other publishers of Apple enthusiast blogs, in December 2004. Less than a month later, the tech giant sued Nicholas, then a 19-year-old Harvard University student, in a lawsuit that was settled nearly three years later, resulting in the closure of his site.
Another group of bloggers drew Steve Jobs’ ire half-a-dozen years later when Gizmodo, the gadget enthusiast website owned by the New York-based Gawker network, intercepted a prototype for Apple’s biggest product of 2010. Gawker was already on Apple’s naughty list from when the flagship site ran a contest earlier that year asking executives to violate disclosure agreements and provide information about the iSlate, the Apple tablet that was announced shortly thereafter and eventually called the iPad. What came next, as Brian Lam, then Gizmodo’s editor-in-chief, later recounted, is classic Steve. “This is some serious shit,” Steve told Brian.
Before then, though, Brian had only had a few brief, but pleasant, encounters with Steve. Brian introduced himself at the executive-friendly All Things Digital conferences, which Steve frequented because it was organized by the influential Walt Mossberg. During that meeting, Steve said that he was a fan of the site and that he read it every day. Even after Gawker’s iSlate stunt, which elicited a cease-and-desist letter from Apple (or in other words, a confirmation of its existence), Steve had an amiable relationship with Brian. Steve offered his advice on an early redesign of Gawker’s websites. The sketch did not meet Steve’s standards of excellence, and he was, of course, vindicated when the new version was officially rolled out, and proved to be a commercial and critical failure resulting in significantly reduced traffic to Gawker sites.
From: brian lam Subject: Gizmodo on iPad Date: March 31, 2010 1:06 PM PDT To: Steve Jobs Here you go, a rough sketch. Should be launched, as the standard face of Gizmodo, by the 3g's launch. What it's meant to do is be friendlier to scan for the 97% of our readers who don't come every day… From: Steve Jobs Subject: Re: Gizmodo on iPad Date: March