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security briefing, the one element that no Apple employee forgets. Call it Scared Silent. Borchers, the iPhone marketing executive who had worked at Nike and Nokia before joining Apple, recalled the scene. “Whoever headed up security came in and said, ‘Okay, everybody understands secrecy and security are incredibly importanof bly impt here. Let me just explain why.’ And the rationale is that when Apple launches a product, if it’s been a secret up until the launch, the amount of press and coverage and buzz that you get is hugely valuable to the company. ‘It’s worth millions ofdollars,’ I remember her saying.” So there’s no confusion, the penalty for revealing Apple secrets, intentionally or unintentionally, is clear: swift termination.
    The aversion to pre-release publicity is a constant at Apple. Phil Schiller, Apple’s powerful senior vice president of product marketing, has been known to compare an Apple product launch to a blockbuster Hollywood movie debut. There is tremendous emphasis on the product’s first few days, akin to a film’s opening weekend. Releasing details ahead of time would dampen the anticipation. Indeed, Apple “fanboys” camp out in front of Apple stores in anticipation of new Apple product releases in a way that is reminiscent of the lines that once greeted a new installment in the
Lord of the Rings
or
Star Wars
franchises.
    This is precisely the effect Schiller desires from the Day One burst of activity. “I still remember him drawing the spike over and over,” said a former Apple executive who worked in Schiller’s organization. The analogy doesn’t translate perfectly, of course. Hollywood plays trailers assiduously in multiple venues in order to stoke demand. Apple’s equivalent is the rumor mill, which anticipates new products, thus providing pre-release publicity free of charge.
    Another reason why Apple wants new products to remain in stealth mode until their release dates is so they don’t steal the thunder from existing products. If consumers know exactly what’s coming, they may hold off on a purchase for fear it will be superseded by the next generation. This dulling of demand renders products already on retail shelves or in warehouses awaiting purchase worthless. (Indeed, even imperfect information can damage sales: Apple said expectations of a new iPhone in the summer of 2011 hurt sales of the existing iPhone 4.)
    Most important, announcing products before they are ready gives the competition time to respond, raises customer expectations, and opens a company up to the carping of critics who are bashing an idea rather than an actual product. Companies who fail to grasp the power of secrecy do so at their peril. Hewlett-Packard committed this product marketing sin in early 2011 by announcing it would have an ill-defined “cloud” offering later in the year. Unfathomably, HP later “pre-announced” the sale of its PC business, inflicting immeasurable damage on a unit that accounted for nearly a third of its sales. (HP’s board fired its CEO, Léo Apotheker, shortly after the announcement about the PC unit.)
    Apple secrecy over its product launches is extraordinary largely because so few other companies keep secrets nearly as well. Matt Drance worked at Apple for eight years, first as an engineer, and then as an “evangelist” helping outside developers design products for the Apple platform. He looked on in amazement at the non-Apple approach. “Here’s a shocker,” he wrote on his blog,
Apple Outsider
, after Korean phone maker LG embarrassingly blew an announced product deadline for a new smartphone.

The product you send out the door will probably come later, and with fewer features, than you intended. Time runs out. Unexpected complications arise. Bugs overwhelm the team. Your partner invalidates your plans. Something’s got to givy ds got te.You need to either take something out, or wait longer. But if you’ve spent months blowing smoke,