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How Apple Rumors Became Reality
Lucas123 writes "Computerworld has a story on how bloggers, rumormongers and Web sleuths pulled together the story of the MacBook Air several days before Steve Jobs unveiled the laptop on stage on Tuesday, something that is nearly unprecedented in the annals of Apple announcements. 'Remember the sturm und drang that erupted after Think Secret revealed the coming of the Mac Mini, prompting Apple to take legal action to silence Think Secret? Is Apple off its game on keeping secrets now? Why was this year's secret leak different? In a word: teamwork.' This seems to be good case study on how to use information from sites like AppleInsider, 9to5mac.com and Ars Technica get a peek under the covers on future talks."
Count me out. I'm not THAT big of a fanboy.
Or you can just read the Fake Steve Jobs blog.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"[...]a combination of Mac fans and intelligent sleuthing pulled the wraps off of Apple's latest creation before Jobs did[...]" http://www.spymac.com/details/?2324639
The first mention I saw of Macbook Air was on a particular site, where someone reported that googling through Adium logs showed a connection made from a MacBook Air.
Now, everyone can make a custom description there, to my understanding, but then people noticed that various macbookair.* websites were registered with ties to Apple.
(All of this happened a few days before the keynote.)
Also, can we officially start calling it AirBook? It's much simpler to say.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Why bother?
Does 2 days really make that big a difference?
Why do people try so hard to crack a "secret" the company's going to reveal to the world in 48 hours?
Is there some secret stock trading scheme involved we don't know about?
Maybe I'm missing the point.
Congratulations, you now know exactly what I know about the MacBook Air. Only difference is, I don't have a pack of hungry lawyers breathing down my pocketbook.
It means none of this "should I buy now or wait for that new model which is being released soon".
Of course there's always stuff announced at Macworld, so if you purchase close to Macworld you're still taking a gamble.
I think the pundits are overcongratulating themselves. Yes, many predicted that Apple would come out with an ultraskinny laptop. But all the stories I saw the day before, from multiple sources, all predicted that Apple would announce a system with no hard disk. Not clear to me whether they were talking about a simple flash-based system or a serious SSD-computer (not sure any of them knew the difference) but most versions basically said it would be something that would be an adjunct to your main computer. In other words, an Apple version of the Palm Foleo! Yeah, right.
Not to run down the Air, which seems to be a decent little box. But it's just a laptop with a minimum of extraneous hardware. (Unless you consider a fixed-focus camera to be extraneous; come to think of it, I do.) Not exactly a major revolution worthy of all the religious awe and ecstasy.
It seems like the apple's falling farther from the information tree.
"Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
Sorry, it just isn't that interesting that they found out about a crippled notebook.
What I'm really waiting for is a several week ahead leak about 10.6 Officially being available for PCs.
Now THAT would would be a helluva rumor.
that Jobs just didn't think too much of the new laptop within his reality distortion field.
His keynote speech seemed less enthusiastic than it was in the past especially compared to last year with the iPhone
Perhaps Jobs saw the new notebook as another product to fill in the notebook offerings from Apple. I also sensed he was more into Apple TV and the rental scheme.
Or perhaps I've built up a barrier against his reality distortion field.
Does anyone realize how many entities know about an Apple release before its out there. There are the hardware companies, the software companies, PR agencies. Apple tries to keep a lid on it but I doubt its easy to do. How much teamwork was involved is questionable, why work together? Who would like to break the story. I found references to the Macbook Air in several places before it existed, e.g., http://personafile.com/macbook-air.html had this page 2 hours before Jobs mentioned it. how?
Apple has probably realized the viral information and speculation whips everyone into a frenzy about it's up coming products. Good free publicity for them, they probably only go after people if the information is wildly off base, incorrect or slanderous. Quick someone statistically analyze past speculation along with expo announcement.
I'm officially old. I think about finding out about new kit 48 hours later and think 'meh'. Once upon a time I'd have wet my pants in anticipation. Oh, the horror!
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
These rumors didn't 'become' reality... They were based on it. The reality came first. All these fan sites did -nothing- to influence Apple. They just reported the news. It'd be like congratulation Channel 1 News for making firefighters save a girl from a burning building. They had -no- influence, they only reported what they heard (or made up and happened to match reality).
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
'Remember the sturm und drang that erupted after Think Secret revealed the coming of the Mac Mini, prompting Apple to take legal action to silence Think Secret?'
Remember it? I don't even know what it is!?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
when you piece it together 3 days before the keynote because of the very posters that Apple themselves put up for everyone to see. Come back to me, when you figure out something 3 months in advance of a keynote. That'll be something.
And I always thought apples were a myth based bible tales.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
who cares?
you're doing exactly what apple's marketing dept wants, getting sucked into the bullshit hype.
the reason they make such a fuss about keeping it 'secret' is because they want suckers (i.e. YOU) to think that they're in touch with exclusive, important information so that they'll then do a shitload of free advertising for apple in their attempts to tell everyone they know how cool & uber-1337 they are for knowing such top-secret stuff.
and you suckers fall for it every time.
I believe this was posted by the real CmdrTaco.
I work across the street from Apple and I heard Apple employees talking about the "thinbook" (that's that they were calling it) at the coffee shop. Just because Apple has a reputation for stopping leaks, that doesn't mean Apple doesn't leak. iTunes leaked too.
...and probably much closer to what really happens behind the scenes in Cupertino than Apple fanboys care to believe. Read John Gruber's piece over at Daring Fireball about how Apple-watchers basically have to practice Kremlinology in order to separate the signal from the noise, or in the case of Apple, the clues from the silence: "When, in the face of white-hot speculation, Apple goes totally silent both officially and privately, that's when they have something big."
Gruber also makes an interesting case that Apple have become absolute masters at subtly meta-managing the "rumor economy" to their public relations benefit. It certainly translates into literally millions of dollars they save on marketing, and only adds to the company's mystique. That alone is priceless as far as the brand is concerned.
I think this was only modded "Flamebait" because you were being an asshole about it, and pretty much guaranteed that your insight wouldn't be taken seriously. Even fanboys are capable of being insulted, and no one likes to be compared to sheep.
Nice! I just checked back and you've been correctly modded "Insightful". Maybe there should be an "Insulting but Insightful" mod tag.
But will it run Vista?
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
It's EXCELLENT free publicity for Apple, and I think they realized it years ago. I also think that it's more accurate to say that they only go after people if the information is in fact closer to the truth. They appear to be much more interested in locating moles in the company than shutting down some college student's rumor site, for the reason that anybody inside Apple who knowingly supplies accurate information in violation of an NDA is in serious breach of contract and could be prosecuted, not just axed.
It's rumored that Apple will create false, compartmentalized, projects with separate code names for disparate parts just to see if a code name leaks. Then they can narrow the mole hunt to the team working in that code-named compartment. Apparently, they really do operate like an intelligence agency in terms of internal security.
Actually, on the 9th I posted an article predicting that Apple would use 1.8" notebook drives, as SSDs of any reasonable size were still commanding a premium price. To be fair, however, I also predicted that they'd add 16GB or so of on-board flash in order to cache system and application files. Nailed the first, missed the cache.
Then the day before MacWorld I did an article on The Totally Wireless MacBook, describing a machine with no ports whatsoever and that did everything via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
And then we got a wireless machine with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and which dropped almost all of the ports except for one USB port, one micro-DVI port (for presentations), and a headphone jack.
Still no SuperDrive docking station though. Drat.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Blew the link to the first article. Want A Small Thin Light Notebook? Here's How.
Got to learn to use Preview.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That's funny. I remember it was information about a Firewire audio break-out box going under the development code name "Asteroid" that was the focus of the Apple/Think Secret spat. And Apple ended up selling the product unreleased to another company (I think they just did that so it would appear Think Secret was wrong).
I think this time around, it was just obvious... mostly in part due to the "something in the air" banners. Aside from that, it was pretty much common knowledge that Apple would produce some sort of improved portability laptop design, either as a thin machine, or something in the vein of the Asus eeePC. It just wasn't known which way they'd go.
Same with iTMS rentals/Apple TV.
No one picked up on Time Capsule or new iPhone/iPod touch apps.
8==8 Bones 8==8
4. Profit!
Apple's home page "The world's thinnest notebook. MacBook Air." design 0.76 inch ... 3.0 pounds
My Toshiba Portege 3015CT lists "Under 3 lbs. & Approx. 3/4" thin". Apple's marketing department must not bother researching competitors have produced in the last.
Ahh, you're so close to having it right. Investment analysts don't bother trying to predict the future swing in the froth of Apple stock. They are - and have been - busily engineering that swing for their own ends. Basically, they, and/or the agencies they work for, are in communication with online pundits and review sites, who publish glowing praise of Apple products when they want the price to go up, and hack-job reviews when they want the price to go down. The froth in the Apple stock that they manipulate is US. You and me. As long as we're nervous nellies who will buy or sell - instead of SIT ON a stock like we SHOULD BE DOING - they will take a nice bite out of the margins our transactions create.
From here, I excerpt:
..let's not forget Slashdot's favorite insider: As Seen On TV
Many thought it was the very Steve Jobs... What could have happened with him?