"Apple Is A Very Tight-Knit Company"

I have recently ran into a friend who works at Apple (partly on iOS) who shared some interesting information with me about some of Apple's operations and company philosophy. He is an insider at Apple and wouldn't tell me much -- or wants much let out into the public -- due to signing a confidentiality agreement. However, he did give small hints here and there and hopefully none of the info from this post will get him any trouble -- or is letting out anything already not rumored. I asked him if an iPad 3 is coming out this fall or a new HD version of the iPad 2, he wouldn't tell me. He did not deny it, however. I asked him "I just want to know if it is worth buying the second iPad now or wait until fall?" and he never said "just buy it now" or deny waiting until fall is a dumb idea. I then asked him "but you know if it is coming or not?" he said "I know but I can't talk about it," so take that as you will. Another source not confirming or denying the rumors out there, but one really close to the action. He also said that apple is a very tight-knitted organization that has very few employees doing a lot of work in inside operations. They are very selective in who they hire. He said he couldn't tell me exactly the amount of people working on safari, like on the java side of it, but that it is a very small number of people -- incredibly small. About 1/30th of the amount Microsoft has working on Explorer. So i am presuming what he was trying to tell me that it is one to two people -- working on Safari. He told me Microsoft has like 20-30 on Explorer. He didn't want to reveal much on this either, however. The other thing he told me is how intelligent many people within the company are and how incredible Steve Jobs' vision is. He said there is an engineer in there who has millions saved up, but chooses to work for Apple out of passion. Apple also gifes out a lot or tech to employees and even pays for their rent -- at least at the beginning when they move from another location or state. He said he had a Macbook Pro he received from Apple that costs thousands of dollars on the market -- and got the latest iPhone, iPad, iMac, and basically every other Apple product from the company. He said they give these devices to him "so he can test them." We got in a bit of a debate about the role of tablets and their future. He said that at first, like me, he believed tablets like the iPad could potentially be more than a larger iDevice, but realized he was wrong in the end. The hardware itself, isn't the reason we don't see complicated programs or apps on the iPad, but larger iPhone versions. It is the fact that the interface, based on multi-touch, is not designed for much content creation -- only content absorption. It is the interface, not specs or hardware that is the reason we don't see a true Photoshop or Final Cut on the iPad. And Apple's philosophy is, if you need that kind of precision or a stylus, why use a tablet at all? Overall, it was an interesting conversation, but for obvious reasons he couldn't reveal or tell em much outside some corporate info not related to products. Mostly what he told me is just based on rumors and his opinion on how great the company is. One thing I noticed is how he never do plained or said anything critical of the company. Maybe it was just him, but I am willing to bet most Apple employees really do see themselves as part of the company's vision. Hopefully this post will educate some fans on how the company operates and why they do things the way they do -- like keep the iPad tied to iOS.