Back to Mobile View  Skip to Content  Apple's growing pains,
culture of secrecy and the iPad  On Saturday, when you plug in
your shiny new iPad and peruse the App Store for apps, you'll
see 'HD' or 'XL' designations for iPad-specific apps. You may
wonder what that's all about.  It's about a lack of solid
information, driven by a top-down policy of secrecy. When a
company like Apple fosters a culture of anxiety amongst third-
party associates and low-level employees, you're going to wind
up with some bad decisions being made in the absence of clear
policies.  True, the iPad offers more pixels than the iPhone,
but it is hardly "HD" (whatever that means to begin with).
Clearly, these suffixes are designed to let you know that they
are "jumbo" versions of apps with more features than their
iPhone companions, right? That may not be the case. While they
might be bigger, they may not be badder. In fact, they may be
more stripped down than their developers intended.  Why would
these apps be less feature-filled than de