
Finding a worm in the Apple? Secret APIs in Mac OS X - auferstehung
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080229-finding-a-worm-in-the-apple-secret-apis-in-mac-os-x.html
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makecheck
It is certainly possible the APIs are hidden for competitive advantage.
However...

There are costs when making an API truly public! Extra work to document it
completely. Extra testing, to cover more than just the cases you know you're
dealing with internally. Revisiting the API every time something new comes
along ("will this API be 64 bit capable?", etc.). And ultimately, cost from
losing the freedom to significantly change anything, lest you break binary
compatibility or create some other problem that multiplies across your
customer base.

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xirium
Does anyone remember the Sparkle MPEG player for MacOS that was popular in
1995? The author of that software was programming smoother playback than the
QuickTime team, despite the QuickTime team pressing for kernel tweaks and
undocumented hooks. The result was a flurry of development which benefitted
users but cramped an independent developer.

