Recent days have reminded me of the many traits Apple and the New York Times share. Both are the best at what they do in certain domains. Each is emphatically elitist, and, in varying ways, self-confident to the point of arrogance. Neither is very transparent (though at least the Times has its Public Editor).

The differences, of course, are profound. In particular, there’s the business trajectory: Apple has reinvented itself several times, and lately has gone from triumph to triumph as a profit-making company. The Times Co.’s record in this regard is deeply mixed: Reinvention has come mostly at the edges, and the business has been heading downhill.

The affinities between Apple and the Times came into sharper focus in the past several weeks, but in ways that have raised some difficult and as-yet unanswered questions. Some background:

On many occasions during the run-up to the launch of the Apple iPad, a product that brought widespread huzzahs from a who’s-who of technology journalists, I visited Apple’s home page. Most of the time, here’s what that page looked like: