Apple’s secrecy and that Hyundai statement

Last week, Hyundai released a very bold statement (knowing Apple…) when it confirmed it was in talks with the Cupertino company about a potential Apple Car partnership. Soon after, the company backed off and released a new statement without mentioning Apple.

Second CNBC, this is just another example ofApple’s strict approach to secrecy, as other anecdotes reported in the article show. As for the Apple Car case, here is Hyundai’s first statement about Apple Car:

We know Apple is in discussions with a variety of automakers, including Hyundai Motor. As the discussion is in the early stage, nothing has been decided.

The next statement, issued shortly after, is the following:

We have received requests for potential collaboration from several companies regarding the development of self-driving electric vehicles, but no decisions have been made as discussions are at an early stage.

To users familiar with Apple’s history, that first statement immediately sounded strange, as partners or future partners rarely make such explicit statements about projects not yet submitted. And indeed …

The CNBC report explains that while non-disclosure agreements are common among companies, Apple’s approach is even stricter. For example, thecompany instructs its partners not to mention the name “Apple” in public or the media and this causes many obstacles to overcome.

An example reported in the article concerns GT Advanced Technologies, which for years supplied sapphire glass for iPhone screens before filing for bankruptcy. During the collaboration with Apple, no one in the company could name that name, not even among the various employees, this caused not a few communication problems. One of the project managers says he was even afraid of naming the Apple name in other contexts completely unrelated to his work.

Despite this great attention, however, images and information of future Apple products are leaking more and more often, especially from the supply chain in Asia.

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