工程师唐•米尔顿曾在苹果公司（Apple）负责牵头开发网络浏览器Safari。2003年1月，苹果首次推出全新的现代浏览器Safari。此前，苹果曾和各家浏览器开发商有过非常复杂的业务往来，包括曾与微软公司（Microsoft）签订五年合作协议，并曾不止一次尝试推出自己的浏览器。（还记得苹果1996年推出的Cyberdog吗？）

    当时乔布斯指出，苹果之所以要拥有自己的浏览器，主要出于两个原因：第一，追求更快的浏览速度；第二，激发创新。时至今日，Safari已成为苹果公司举足轻重的战略资产。在台式机市场，Safari的使用率远远落后于Explorer、Chrome和Firefox（据StatCounter.com称，IE和Chrome两者的市场占有率合计高达66%，而Safari则刚过7%）。但是，取决于不同的统计方法，Safari要么是最受欢迎的移动浏览器，要么仅次于谷歌安卓（Android）的Chrome，排名第二。鉴于移动浏览市场正在爆炸式增长而且增长势头将持续，Safari已成为苹果最重要的产品之一。

    现在，米尔顿写了一篇有趣的文章，专门谈了当时开发Safari涉及到的保密问题。这篇文章详细讲述了苹果是如何为新产品保密的（参见《财富》杂志（Fortune）专文“苹果的秘密”）。苹果所采用的防止信息外泄的内控措施是一回事，但工程师有时候发现，自己戴上的技术和管理的紧箍咒代表了更高层面的控制。比如：

    我不仅从斯科特•福斯特那里接到命令，要开发一款浏览器并为之打造一支团队，我还得为这整个项目保守秘密。当我试图组建一支最具创造力的团队时，这种要求让招聘工作变得格外复杂，因为我没法告诉应聘的人他们将研发什么产品，只有等到他们被录用后才能告诉他们真相。

    阅读全文请访问唐的博客。

    译者：清远

    Don Melton is an engineer who, while at Apple, was responsible for spearheading the development of the company's Safari web browser. Safari was introduced as an all-new, modern navigator in January 2003. Up to then, Cupertino had had a convoluted set of relationships with different browser makers, including a five-year agreement with Microsoft, and had tried to roll its own more than once. (Remember Cyberdog?)

    At the time, Jobs pointed to two reasons Apple (AAPL) wanted its own browser: faster browsing and to kickstart innovation. Today, Safari is a major strategic asset for the company. On the desktop, Safari usage lags far behind Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox. (It has just over 7% market share compared to IE and Chrome's combined 66%, according to StatCounter.com.) But, depending on how you count, Safari is either the most popular mobile browser or just behind Google's (GOOG) Chrome for Android. Mobile browsing is exploding and set to keep growing, making Safari one of Apple's most important products.

    Now Melton has written a fascinating account of the secrecy that went into developing Safari in the first place. How far Apple will go to keep new products a secret is well documented. (See Fortune's The secrets Apple keeps.) The internal measures it takes to keep information from getting out are one thing. But the technical and managerial hoops engineers sometimes find themselves jumping through are next level. For instance:

    Not only was I tasked by Scott Forstall with building a browser and building a team to build that browser, I had to keep the whole damn project a secret. Which, by the way, really complicated the shit out of hiring most of the original team since I couldn't tell them what they were working on until they took the job.

    Check out the rest of the story on Don's blog.