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."

Googling the Adium logs

[Tibor the Hun]

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.

Reason for secrets?

[gilesjuk]

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.

Pulled Together?

[fm6]

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.

BIG deal

[Amocat]

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.

Re:Seriously....

[truthsearch]

The first people to publish information about a new secret product can easily get a massive amount of page views. Profits for blogs and news sites are mostly from traffic, so they tend to choose topics that drive traffic to their site. A hot new product from Apple is definitely one of them.

For some it's simply fanboyism. Just like a fan of a band can't wait to hear their new songs, big Apple fans can't wait to hear about the next product.

Re:Seriously....

[__aajfby9338]

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.

Rumors become reality?

[Aladrin]

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).

Re:Reason for secrets?

[peragrin]

ah but that is the kicker. Really smart people don't buy revision A apple hardware. It always has a few loose ends that need to be fixed.

I want an iPhone. but I am waiting until at least the SDK and third party apps ship, or the second revision of the phone.

which ever comes first. This way I am not the beta tester. Sort of like SP1, or SP2 for MSFT software. the really annoying bugs are finally worked out of the system and it becomes useful.

baaa baaa

[cas2000]

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.

Re:Seriously....

[GnarlyDoug]

It's not insider trading, just trading. If you can predict ahead of everyone else, even by the thinest of margins, what is going to happen to a stock then you can make a lot of money. Apple stock is incredibly volatile. It moves up and down so much that if you can predict one of those moves you can make 20%+ profit in a couple of days easily.