Apple community

In this article, the term Apple rumor community refers to the community surrounding rumors concerning Apple Inc. and its products, including the Macintosh and iPod. In recent years, a subculture has developed around rumors about new products and services from Apple. The company enjoys a cult-like following for its Macintosh platform. This, combined with a very tight-lipped corporate policy about future products, has fostered this interest in the company's every move.

History

The industry of Macintosh speculation, known as "Mac Rumors," began with a regular column in the now defunct MacWEEK magazine called "Mac the Knife" and written under a pseudonym. This column would often cover topics such as upcoming hardware releases from Apple, as well as new software products and incremental updates with new features. It was written by the MacWeek staff and was sometimes used by companies as an early form of viral marketing to generate buzz around products before they were ready for release. For instance, Macromedia would tout new features in the upgrade to its drawing program when buzz was building for an imminent release of Adobe Illustrator.

The popularity of Mac the Knife's column, combined with the Internet's publishing model, made a low-cost business model viable for others, and early on MacOSRumors became the "it" source for Macintosh rumors, especially as MacWEEK was thrown into turmoil by the decline of Apple's fortunes in the mid '90s.

Historical Sites

MacOSRumors

Run by Ryan Meader for over twelve years, MacOSRumors originally collected content from message boards and usenet posts but later developed contacts inside Apple. MacOSRumors was the first site to announce, among other things, the new case design used with the G4 towers. MacOSRumors tried to spread its popularity to other sites, including InternetWeather.com, a plan that was later scrapped. In the past few years, however, MacOSRumors has gained a reputation for being notoriously inaccurate with many claims that the content is fabricated [1]. Meader had allowed the MacOSRumors domain name to expire around July 16th, 2007, but then renewed the domain for another nine years and announced the addition of a new staff writer.

ThinkSecret

Think Secret appeared in 1999 and had been deemed a reliable source of Mac-related rumors. Apple filed a lawsuit against the company alleging it printed stories containing Apple trade secrets. In December 2007 the lawsuit was settled with no sources being disclosed; however, the site was shut down, finally closing on the 14th February 2008. This is the only time the company has taken action against a web site under trade secrets law.

Following the lawsuit, the accuracy and validity of ThinkSecret's reports had greatly fallen, with the site usually rehashing reports from AppleInsider and MacRumors.

In the year leading up to the closing of the site, ThinkSecret started showing signs that its accuracies were rising again, with its correct prediction of an Aluminum shell iMac, development of a touchscreen-based iPod starting in 2006, and the relative BlackBerry-esque form factor of the new iPod Nano. However, there were still some reports that turned out to be false, such as its prediction of the demise of the Mac Mini, when it received an upgrade in mid-2007, albeit with no fanfare.

Long recurring rumors that came true

1990s

• Apple entering the video game console market (confirmed with the introduction of the Pippin).

2000

• A small, square Mac tower with no monitor. Confirmed with the release of the Power Mac G4 Cube in 2000.

2005

• A cheaper, scaled down, "headless iMac". Confirmed with the release of the Mac Mini in 2005.
• Mac OS X on Intel machines (Confirmed by the Apple Intel transition in 2005)
• iPod with video playback (confirmed with the release of 5G iPod on October 12, 2005)
• Flash-based iPod (long rumored, confirmed with release of iPod shuffle and iPod nano in 2005)
• Video sales at the iTunes Store (confirmed on October 12, 2005)

2006

• Full-length movie sales at the iTunes Store (confirmed September 12 2006)
• Redevelopment/re-implementation of Apple set-top box/DVR concept (see Apple Interactive Television Box, Macintosh TV) (confirmed with Apple TV on September 12, 2006)

2007

• iPhone (Motorola's Rokr was originally considered to be the iPhone, but an iPhone developed by Apple was confirmed at Macworld Expo January 9 2007)
• Development of an advanced finger touch-screen device: confirmed with the release of the iPhone, which features a multi-touch technology, and brought to the iPod line in the iPod touch.
• The addition of a spreadsheet application to iWork. Came true on 7 August, 2007, when iWork '08 was announced.
• iPod with a big screen filling its entire front for movie playback (commonly referred to as the "true" or "widescreen" video iPod): Somewhat came true with the iPhone, and fully realized with the iPod touch, announced September 5 2007.

2008

• Movie rentals on iTunes Store, came true on January 15, 2008.
• A portable subnotebook, came true on January 15 with the introduction of the MacBook Air.
• A new manufacturing technique for new notebooks, came true on October 14 with the introduction of the unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro. However, this new technique was not as new as thought, as the MacBook Air was introduced with the same construction technique without fanfare earlier in the year at MacWorld 2008.

Current Websites

The Apple rumors community is currently made up of several major websites. Additionally most of the other mainstream technology sites including Arstechnica, Engadget, Gizmodo and Slashdot include Apple sections and sometimes release rumors of their own.

9 to 5 Mac

Main article: 9 to 5 Mac

9 to 5 Mac is a fairly new rumor site that received little attention, until all of its predictions about the aluminum iMac came true. It then leaked what it purported to be genuine pictures of the third generation iPod nano, which Apple later demanded to be removed, as well as leaking information about the iPod touch. 9 to 5 Mac are now widely believed to have a real source inside Apple and are currently one of the most believed rumor sites.

AppleInsider

Main article: AppleInsider

AppleInsider generally reports the most Apple news and also has some of the most reliable sources for rumors and as of 2008 has done for a number of years. In the late 1990s Apple successfully sued a John Doe from AppleInsider's boards with the username "Worker Bee" for revealing information on what would eventually become the Apple Pro Mouse. It was a rare case of Apple following through on threats of a suit. The case was settled out of court.. In 2004 several moderators and members left the forum to found AppleNova. It also has a forum for discussion of news stories and other community news.

MacBidouille/HardMac

Main article: MacBidouille

The French site MacBidouille used to report rumors, although they stopped for multiple reasons. However, they still "speculate" from time to time, such as for the release of the G5. Otherwise, MacBidouille (french for "MacHacks") is one of the best sites of information for French Mac users. It offers daily news, articles and forums, which are amongst the largest ones devoted to French-speaking Mac users. If rumors and announces made part of its fame, most of its articles give technical (testing, fixing, and customizing) or commercial information – and sometimes harsh criticisms against Apple's policy. There is an English version of the site called HardMac, which carries the actual same news and articles (usually with a half-day delay), translated in English by a team of volunteers.

MacRumors

Main article: MacRumors

File:Mac Rumors.png

In 2000, MacRumors appeared as an aggregator of Mac-related rumors and reports around the Mac web. By consolidating reports and cross-referencing claims, MacRumors attempts to keep track of the rumor community. MacRumors now has over 170,000 members and over 5,000,000 forum posts. In addition to providing rumors, news, and an active forum, MacRumors also serves as one of the most prominent sites for broadcasting live coverage of Apple announcements via MacRumorsLive.com. Macrumors is also home to one of the biggest Mac based forums. Users can find support for many Apple related issues, as well as talk to other Mac users about other community and industry related issues.

MacScoop

Main article: MacScoop

Initiated in May 2002 as MacOSXRumors, it initially focused on Mac OS X but quickly widened its scope to general Apple news and rumors. It does both corroborating and its own reports. The site, was renamed MacScoop in September 2006, with MacOSXRumors.com remaining online as a more Mac OS X-centric view of the content. The site's owner is among those who have been in touch with Apple lawyers in 2004 after publishing a Mac OS X Tiger related article.

Other Sites

The following sites are not considered major sources of rumors.

• Arstechnica's Infinite Loop is Arstechnica's Apple Journal, although they occasionally report rumors, they generally stick with solid news stories.
• DigiTimes was originally considered to be a mostly inaccurate Mac rumors site until its predictions of a delay in the introduction of Leopard, introduction of LED displays on Mac laptops, and flash-based iPods with WiFi abilities all came true. Mac rumor sites are now taking a serious look at this website once again.
• LoopRumors is a newer site that mainly republishes news gleaned from other rumor and news sites.
• Rhythmac is not a source for original rumors but rather aggregates Apple rumors from the major sites and contextualizes them with historical release and pricing information.
• Spymac made a splash in 2003 with its reporting of the "iWalk" rumor (an Apple PDA) but has since been repurposed to a semipornographic video sharing site with no Macintosh-related content.

Extra-community activities

The Mac rumors user communities often coordinate their ranks in extra-community activities. For example, Stanford University's Folding@home distributed computing protein research project keeps track of how much computer power is donated by users, and currently 6 of the top 100 teams are organized by Mac rumors-related websites.

Apple's response

Apple's official stance on the Mac rumor scene has been one of disapproval. Cease and desist orders were not uncommon when rumor sites were able to accurately report product images or documents. Historically, however, Apple has primarily pursued the leakers of information rather than the rumor sites themselves. Apple's most recent suit against Think Secret, however, is targeting whether these sites have the right to knowingly publish this protected information.

During his January 10 2006 keynote address to the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs poked fun at the rumors community by pretending to create a "Super Secret Apple Rumors" podcast during his demonstration of new features in GarageBand. The domain SuperSecretAppleRumors.com, was registered by a member of said community, and used to redirect to the rumor site AppleNova.

See also

• Rumor Websites
  • 9 to 5 Mac
  • AppleInsider
  • MacBidouille
  • MacRumors
  • MacScoop
• General Apple Pages
  • Apple Inc.
  • iPod
  • iPhone
  • Mac

External links

Below are some of the biggest rumor sites.

• 9 to 5 mac
• AppleInsider
• AppleNova
• MacRumors.com
• MacScoop
• MacBidouille/HardMac: MacBidouille in English