Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

How Apple Rumors Became Reality

Posted by Zonk on from the go-bloggers-go-blogging-inferno dept.

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."

8 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Peek under Jobs' covers by Trigun · · Score: 5, Funny

    Count me out. I'm not THAT big of a fanboy.

    1. Re:Peek under Jobs' covers by ChrisA90278 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "Count me out. I'm not THAT big of a fanboy."

      Fanboys don't work so hard. Investment analysts sometimes do. The point is that if you can predict the future you can make a killing in the stock market. Apple's stock is very volitile. It goes up and down. If you can predict those little bumps you can get rich.
      Just think: If you KNEW 100% that some long awaited announcement would result in disappointment and a $11 loss in the stock price you'd short Apple. So there is a whole ecosystem built around trying to predict what will happen to Apple.

  2. Googling the Adium logs by Tibor+the+Hun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  3. Re:Seriously.... by __aajfby9338 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why do people try so hard to crack a "secret" the company's going to reveal to the world in 48 hours?

    Why do kids sneak in to the living room and shake all of the Christmas presents when they're going to open them up in 48 hours? Excitement. Anticipation. Enthusiasm. Some folks just can't bear the wait, and thus love to learn any clues that they can. Plus, Apple's deliberate attempts to keep things secret are an irresistible challenge to many folks who like to play detective.

  4. Re:Pulled Together? by kestasjk · · Score: 5, Funny
    What are you talking about? It's it's 0.2 inches thinner on average than the closest competitor, and it's fully recyclable; if that isn't revolutionary then what is?

    Things that were revolutionary, in ascending order:
    • Refrigerators
    • Object oriented design
    • The transistor
    • Writing
    • Agriculture
    • The Renaissance
    • Renting movies over the internet from your couch
    • A laptop which is 0.2 inches thinner than the next-thinnest laptop


    P.S. I hate the word "revolutionary" when referring to anything computer related. One of the best things about community driven FOSS projects is the lack of BS words like "revolutionary".
    --
    // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
  5. baaa baaa by cas2000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:Pulled Together? by ZombieRoboNinja · · Score: 5, Informative

    >>One of the best things about community driven FOSS projects is the lack of BS words like "revolutionary".

    Google the following:
    "Openoffice+revolutionary": 174,000 results.
    "Bittorrent+revolutionary": 249,000
    "Firefox+revolutionary": 435,000
    "Linux+revolutionary": 441,000
    "Richard+Stallman+revolutionary": 167,000

    Whatever positive attributes the open-source movement might have, lack of hyperbole is not high among them.

  7. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion