[nsp]

Does anyone know why Apple stopped doing this(or stopped doing it as thoroughly)? With the possible exception of the original, sites have consistently reported visits from iOS/iPhone:iPad user agents (and claimed that the ip originated within apple) well before launch. Recent example: http://thenextweb.com/apple/2013/01/01/developers-begin-seei...

[markrages]

I'm guessing it's not a secret or surprise to anyone that Apple would work on a new version of their operating system, nor that such operating system would include a browser.

Safari, on the other hand, was unexpected.

[robmcm]

Also, what were the chances that someone would even notice "Safari" in their log files had it of slipped out, vs some stats company who only work on iPhones noticing a new iPhone version.

Apple 10 years ago < Apple now

[Tloewald]

Apple was big news in the tech industry even at its nadir. To quote (roughly from memory) BYTE in 1994 -- the history of the computer industry over the last ten years has consisted of following Apple.

[nirvana]

That Apple makes the iPhone and iPad is not a secret. The article you link to is talking about stats that apps are reporting over the internet... the apps have to know what kind of device they are running on, and have to be able to handle differences between the devices (eg: the screen difference between the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5).

No real information is released with these hardware model numbers that's not already reasonably known.

The only exception is for devices that people might think are end of life, or unlikely to get a refresh soon.

For instance, the Mac Pro may start showing up in logs, and that would be news, because it is so rarely updated... or it would be news if Tim Cook hadn't said that they planned to release an update (in 2013? not sure when he said it would be.)

So, knowing that iOS 7 (8, 9, etc.) are under development doesn't give away any of the secrets-- eg: what the special features of those OSes will be.

[bgarbiak]

Well, you can get some real secrets by combining user agents with other data. For example: screen resolution.