Apple engineers put on false products until trust is gained

When you're running a company so gigantic and so very profitable that even the smallest leak of information on your upcoming product line could cost you masses of cash, you've got to take Apple-level precautions. That's what its come to- when you speak about security of product names, details, and the whole lot, you compare a company to Apple, the mack-daddy of all secured product releasers. This week its become apparent that their level of secrecy runs so deep that engineers new to the company are put on projects that will not amount to anything for their first nine or so months of employment.

This tidbit was brought up first, it seems, in the book "Inside Apple" by Adam Lashinsky, and was again brought up and "re-confirmed" by a former Apple employee. How on earth either of these folks plans on moving through the rest of their lives with the knowledge that Apple now has them on their "do not tell secrets to" list, we may never know. Lashinsky spoke at a Linkdin event this week and it was a question and answer segment that had the former Apple employee step up to the plate:

The engineer spoke the following: "A friend of mine who's a senior engineer at Apple, he works on — or did work on — fake products I'm sure for the first part of his career, and interviewed for 9 months. It's intense." Certainly that's no small claim, and certainly if true, we wouldn't be surprised. Like a school you just have to be a part of, getting accepted into the Apple fold is something not only to strive for, but to work to keep and be proud of for a long, long time.

The image above comes from the iBangle post posted at the end of 2011, one that saw some heavy sharing due to its utterly odd nature.

[via Business Insider]