[grav1tas]

Apple is pretty secretive already. Would it really matter if they got even more secretive? I find myself on the opposite end of the spectrum as you with respect to NDAs. I think it's a sad state of affairs that so many companies today use them to stifle discussion about their up and coming products...or use other legislation or agreements to prevent power users from realizing the full potential of the products they already own (EULAs + DMCA). Are there cases where NDAs make sense? Of course! Is an NDA really an appropriate reason to stifle conversation about an up and coming OS? I personally don't think so. Plus, it's just exciting to talk about new things and leak info and it really doesn't hurt anybody in this case anyway. If anything, it just builds up the fanboy marketing fervor that Apple works off of so well. To say that they are unaware of this effect's existence would be rather strange to me.

As far as being lax about caring for contractual obligations, I think it's a side-effect of living in an overly litigious society where you have to agree to umpteen EULAs a day to get anything done on a computer (and many electronic devices).