The technology sector is addicted to hype but shouting from the rooftops about what your products will be able to do before they hit the shelves seems to be no longer the way to create a buzz.
Keeping a lid on the details of major product launch is nigh on impossible in a world where bloggers can create a frenzy of excitement with a mere skerrick of detail.
Yet Apple’s latest attempt to suppress the details of next week’s launch shows how much store Steve Jobs and his peers place by keeping the world guessing as long as possible.
Yet it was not always so. When Apple launched its iMac in 1998, the company was more comfortable in discussing the details of its re-entry into the computer mass market ahead of the official launch of the colourful range of computers.
Back then, Microsoft held the most sway when it came to creating hype with its launch of Windows 95, when it paid £8 million to use Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones to create a consumer frenzy for the system, a benchmark for the industry. Apple repeated the trick when it recruited U2 to boost the buzz around the iPod in 2006.
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However, hype can be a double-edged sword as Microsoft found when it launched its Vista operating system in 2007 under the tagline “The Wow Starts Now”. Images of the Berlin Wall and Woodstock did not create the buzz the company had hoped and the system failed to live up to the hype.
For Apple, silence is golden and the palpable sense of anticipation will only feed the frenzy in the run up to the big event.