Yes, this seems likely. If Apple is anything like most tech companies, the people who interact with third parties like Astropad would be in a division called something like Partnerships, at a far remove from the core macOS product decision-making.

I think this is very likely- when I was there ~3 years ago, my org was pretty silo’d and it seemed like this was common for most teams, by design.

> left hand doesn't know what the right is doing

It probably isn't even that. The "Left hand" could be engineers who are only thinking about technical and product design aspects and really want the thing to go off and succeed. And then, just when it's about to happen, a legal team does the final check and someone higher in the hierarchy has to approve it and they say "wait, can we just build this in house much cheaper". The Right Hand just learned what the Left Hand was up to, and decided that it isn't perfectly in company's interest, so they adjust it a bit.

> "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by a byzantine organizational structure in which the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing"

Is there utility in such a distinction?

Improved ability to understand the present and predict the future?

e.g. if malice, then sharing ideas is more dangerous; if byzantine organization dynamics, then it's less dangerous.

The effect is the same. If you assume malice, the actions you end up predicting are identical to the actions you predict if you assume byzantine organization. They are functionally equivalent. The distinction is hardly even a distinction at all, since byzantine organizations are often malicious. Even if no particular individual in the organization has malicious intent, the actions of the organization as a whole may be malicious.

It would be very surprising indeed if they were truly indistinguishable.

More and more I hear this applied to companies acting irresponsibly. How about 'effing's law' where companies are exempt from that adage. Public companies act in the interest of profit. Full stop.