Critics of Apple’s tight-lipped secrecy policies paint a portrait of a company that treats its inner workings like nuclear secrets. To these critics, like the industry analysts whose “analysis” usually reads like Sovietologists during the Cold War, the company’s policy on publicly available information is an unreasonable attempt to control public knowledge and potentially harm shareholders’ interests.

I’ve always been reasonably supportive of these efforts. They’re a great way to get a lot of attention without having to lavish liquor and food on tech reporters and opinion-makers, and Apple clearly has no interest in going the Hollywood route. The alternative approaches seem to be either (a) chaos or (b) just seeding your press releases out into the ether. During my abortive attempt at tech reporting for an actual publication as an intern, I would receive as much as a couple hundred press releases a day, and I assume real tech reporters receive even more, so (b) is obviously not a viable option for Apple. (P.S. If you sell Outlook plugins, you’re probably better off relying on word of mouth.) And (a) results mostly in the Microsoft dual approaches, either weird coordinated parties all around the US (cf. Windows 95 release) or major fanfare for weird, semi-vaporware projects (cf. Microsoft Surface).

But those of you who’ve been following the news know that Steve Jobs has been on sick leave since January. Jobs was treated for pancreatic cancer five years ago, and had the tumor removed surgically, but the Wall Street Journal reported in mid-June that he had received a liver transplant sometime in April. The Journal's report speculated that the pancreatic cancer metastasized to his liver, which is apparently fairly common for pancreatic cancer patients.

The Journal’s story was a major scoop, following on the heels of months of speculation about Jobs’ health. It was also curiously timed, released like a lead balloon late on a Friday night during the week of the iPhone 3GS release. And John Gruber notes that the WSJ had no sources for their story, which is astonishingly unusual. This newspaper would source me if I said my mother loved me. (“Meltzer’s mother confirmed to the Journal that she did, indeed, love her son.”)

Although a lot of news organizations—e.g., the San Jose Mercury News, Bloomberg—wrote through the story, I have not seen anyone who claimed that they had verified the story on their own. Gruber quotes CNBC’s story as “verifying” the account, but “two sources confirmed” is only a little better than “according to the Wall Street Journal” if you’re looking for facts.

(Gruber must have better news alerts than I do, because he linked last week to a press release from Methodist Hospital in Tennessee confirming that Jobs had received a liver transplant.)

My first thought when I read the WSJ story was pretty much what I wrote in February, again:

As long as he doesn’t have his finger on The Button, why should I really care whether he’s healthy or sick?

That, and “I’m glad to hear that Steve is recovering. If he really did have a liver transplant two months ago, he must be doing well. Thank goodness for his family and friends.”

But that’s not how everyone sees things, I guess.

Let’s set aside the usual, snide commentary that insinuates that everyone rich or famous who gets a transplant jumps the line. If you’re an analyst or a blogger whose big issue is Apple’s secrecy or some kind of weird hatred of Steve Jobs, then every story about Apple looks like a nail. I’m willing to buy that there’s debate whether Jobs was legally obligated to disclose his medical issues. At the same time, I would think that Jobs going on medical leave (whether under the Family and Medical Leave Act or some other provision doesn’t matter) and giving over control of the company to COO Tim Cook should insulate Jobs.

But the odd tone of anger and disbelief I heard on the subject from all corners of the Internet is just mind-boggling. To some people, the desire for privacy by Steve Jobs, the person, while on medical leave is outweighed by…the fact that Apple, the company, has a penchant for secrecy. We all have a bad habit of playing the “Steve Jobs = Apple” game, but it’s become clear since his bout of ill health in 2004 that Apple is no more the corporate embodiment of Steve Jobs than the United States is the embodiment of its president.

Sticking to the legal merits, Warren Buffett told CNBC he didn’t think that CEOs of large-cap companies really deserved any privacy:

Certainly Steve Jobs is important to Apple. So it’s a material fact. Whether he is facing serious surgery or not is a material fact. Whether I’m facing serious surgery is a material fact. Whether (General Electric CEO) Jeff Immelt is, I mean, so I think that’s important to get out. They’re going to find out about it anyway so I don’t see a big privacy issue or anything of the sort. (CNBC)

I’ve culled just a collection of snippets from people who seem disinterested in his actual health, and disinterested in the fact that Steve wasn’t even technically on duty when it became clear he needed a new liver. To them, this is all about the usual “Apple obsessed with secrecy” game:

It’s the latest fib that he and Apple have told concerning his health: the company didn’t disclose that he had had pancreatic cancer in 2004…Jobs’s case is different. How? Because Jobs represents most of Apple’s value. Without his return in the mid-1990s, the company would have gone bust by 2000. (TechWire)

Looks like Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field is portable, because it now appears to have made a trip with Jobs to Memphis, Tenn…[W]e got false information, that Jobs was never a patient. (Forbes)

If Mr. Jobs had retired from Apple—or had taken an open-ended leave—then I would say yes, it’s his business and not his investors’. But he didn’t do that. He took a six-month leave, which ends on Monday. Already, he is reportedly back at work. But what does that mean? Is he fully back in the saddle? Is he part time? Is he involved only in big strategic decisions? Is he back to his old micromanaging self? Have we now reached the point, in other words, where his health is impinging on his ability to run Apple? That’s the real question, isn’t it? Are Mr. Jobs’s health problems affecting his work?…Up to now, those directors have put Mr. Jobs’s obsession with privacy ahead of the interest of the Apple shareholders they are supposed to be representing. (Joe Nocera, The New York Times) (emph. Nocera’s)

Like a hung computer operating system, Apple’s board is neglecting pressing information-retrieval work. Data on the effectiveness of liver transplants for Jobs’ condition is, at once, scant and unpromising. Yet some specific information about Jobs’ condition would be useful in evaluating his prognosis…[O]bviously Jobs is recovering nicely if he’s going back to work next week, right? Perhaps, but it’s not clear how hard he’ll be able to work; recall that Jobs may be working part-time, per a Journal report earlier this week. Or he might not. He might be already back to week, per an anonymous (read: probably spoon-fed by Apple) report from CNBC’s Jim Goldman. Or he might not be returning until June 30. (Gawker)

When the Industry Standard is the voice of reason, it gives you pause:

Anyone who reads the tech press knows there has been constant, merciless speculation about Jobs’ health for months, justified to some extent by the sense that Apple’s well-being is closely tied to his…Still, Apple appears to have continued on a steady course in Jobs’ absence, which may help prepare and reassure investors for whenever he decides to scale back or leave. (The Industry Standard)

John Gruber speculated that, given the timing of the story, the reporting from the Journal was a leak from Jobs himself. I’m not so sure about that, but anything’s possible.

The thing that bothered me about all of this is that, reading these articles and blog posts, I got the distinct sense that this wasn’t really about Steve Jobs’ health. Stories about Apple seem to bring out the intensely personal in people. I felt like what I was really reading about was yet another story about Apple and secrecy.