Fruity toymaker Apple is making its iPad developers sign bizarre secrecy oaths which make the Freemasons look like a bunch of pansies. Masons have to swear to keep things in their order secret or else they will have their throat cut, their stomach slit open and their guts tossed over their shoulders.

To become a developer who needs to test the iPad you have to promise to keep it isolated in a room with blacked-out windows. The 10-page oath bars partners from disclosing any information about the iPad. The borrowed iPad must also remain tethered to a “fixed object” we assume that is because it will escape. Apple won't send out an iPad until potential partners send photographic evidence that they've complied.

Bending to Apple's bizarre demands may be a small price to pay for inclusion amongst an elite Illuminati of Apple's favoured developers. Of course it will all look pretty silly if users suddenly realise that they have just bought a $500 keyboardless netbook that sucks so hard that when you turn it on all the windows in the room blow out.