Apple has an amazing reputation for being able to take products right through the development process and even to the stage of having millions of units ready for shipping without a single leak being made.
They managed to take the first version of the iPhone through 30 months of development with manufacturing partners as well as companies such as AT&T and even Google as they developed applications for the device. In all this time there were no significant leaks – in fact when the phone was unveiled even Apple senior managers were seeing it for the first time.
Like any major tech company Apple has contracts with their employees and spell out in no uncertain terms that a leak will result in the employee losing their job and being prosecuted. The really amazing thing is that third parties such as manufacturing partners have access to the phones months before they are unveiled and the details are still not leaked.
When the first iPhone was unveiled employees were even prevented from telling their families about the top secret project they were working on:
Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of marketing and one of the few Apple executives involved with the project from the start, said he had to keep the iPhone development secret even from his wife and children. When he left home for the official unveiling yesterday, Schiller said, his son asked, “Dad, can you finally tell us now what you’ve been working on?” Jobs paused during the keynote to acknowledge the strain and sacrifices that the past months have brought not just for the employees who kept the secrets so well, but also for their families. “We couldn’t have done it without you,” he said, with obvious sincerity.
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