I think the intent of this message was to admit failure internally only. It was a corporate email, not a press release.
There's a fertile grey area between the top-secret internal email and the press release, ranging from deliberately dropping a copy of your "top-secret" email on the floor of a journalist's office to deliberately sending the email to a bunch of people who are known to be bad at keeping secrets.
Apple's pretty good at keeping secrets. When something leaks out of Apple within 24 hours I tend to assume that it had some assistance.
I think the diplomatic wording is another clue that Jobs, at the very least, doesn't care that this email got out.
The way Apple keeps secrets is by keeping information strictly need to know. Anything that gets sent out to the whole company is usually leaked pretty quickly.
There's a fertile grey area between the top-secret internal email and the press release, ranging from deliberately dropping a copy of your "top-secret" email on the floor of a journalist's office to deliberately sending the email to a bunch of people who are known to be bad at keeping secrets.
Apple's pretty good at keeping secrets. When something leaks out of Apple within 24 hours I tend to assume that it had some assistance.
I think the diplomatic wording is another clue that Jobs, at the very least, doesn't care that this email got out.