Tue, 05 Feb 2013 Apple employees find the company's secretive nature frustrating

Apple is known for its secrecy when it comes to its product pipeline, but new reports reveal that this secretive nature even frustrates the company's employees, who say that they often don't know what they're working on.

Business Insider highlights a number of recent reviews on Glassdoor, a website that aims to give an inside look at companies, which say that Apple's level of secrecy can sometimes limit their ability to work.

Glassdoor encourages reviewers to list both pros and cons that come with working for a company, and while one current USX designer situated in Apple's Cupertino HQ said that the experience of working for Apple is "breathtaking," they also said that there is "a lot of secrecy, you don't know what you're working on."

A former Apple engineer wrote that the company offers a "very challenging environment," but that "secrecy is a killer, the more you give to the job the more is expected from you."

"No chance of a life balance here," the engineer continued. "Ever wondered why Google always makes the top ten of the best companies to work for but Apple never gets even close? Well there's a reason…"

An Apple software engineer intern wrote "smart people, cool products, challenging environment…secrecy is tiring," in their review left on 19 January, while a former software engineer left a review in December that reads: "Great products, damaging culture… Culture of secrecy for the sake of secrecy is extremely damaging."

In October, one Apple software engineer wrote that, while the company is an "awesome place to work," the secrecy and 'need-to-know' process of sharing information can "sometimes hamper progress."

Another said that Apple is a "great company to work for," but the "culture of secrecy can be fairly annoying at times."

"You get a sense of being out of the loop sometimes," wrote another engineer in September. "Various departments are shut off from one another. It's very competitive too."

Overall, employees rate their experience working for Apple as satisfactory, with 94 per cent saying that they approve of CEO Tim Cook.

While leaks seem to emerging more frequently, it doesn't look like Apple will be spilling its secrets any time soon. Do you think that Apple should be more open about what it is working on? Let us know in the comments section below or on Twitter.

See also:

iPhone 5 launch leak 'came from Apple'

Apple tries to stop leaks in US, but China can't be controlled

Apple hiring for 'imaginative and visionary' iLife and iWork designers

iPhone 5S and 'iPhablet' could help Apple shares recover, say analysts