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In this article, the term Apple rumors 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.[citation needed]

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.

MacOSRumors

Run originally by a man named Ryan Meader, MacOSRumors was a popular source for Apple rumors and news. MacOSRumors originally collected content from message boards and usenet posts but later developed contacts inside Apple.[citation needed] MacOSRumors was the first site to announce, among other things, the new case design used with the G4 towers.[citation needed] MacOSRumors tried to spread its popularity to other sites, including InternetWeather.com, a plan that was later scrapped.[citation needed] More recently, some readers felt that the quality of updates had deteriorated significantly, pointing to evidence that reports are more likely to be fabricated than from any actual source. MacOSRumors also contains several pop-up ads, banner ads, and dead links. MacOSRumors has been widely discounted and ignored by the Mac rumors community, even though they continue to provide updates on a weekly basis. The MacOSRumors.com domain expired on July 16, 2007, and the fate of the site is currently unknown.

AppleInsider

File:AppleInsider.gif

AppleInsider, originally named "Reality", first appeared as an offshoot of MacNN. For many years, however, the site was dormant, without updates. Only in recent years has AppleInsider returned to activity and some notoriety by being named in recent suits by Apple Inc.. 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.[1]

MacRumors.com

File:Mac Rumors.gif

In 2000, MacRumors.com 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 110,000 members and over 3,800,000 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.

Think Secret

Think Secret appeared in 1999 and recently has been deemed a reliable source of Mac-related rumors.[citation needed] Apple has filed a lawsuit against the company alleging it printed stories containing Apple trade secrets.[2] This is the only time the company has taken action against a web site under trade secrets law.[citation needed] Recently, however, the accuracy and validity of ThinkSecret's reports have greatly fallen, with the site usually rehashing reports from AppleInsider and MacRumors.

AppleNova

AppleNova is a forum that was formed in May, 2004 after many members and several administrators moved from the AppleInsider forum.[3] This was due to differing views in how the AppleInsider forum should be run, and AppleNova emerged as an ad-free alternative. It continues to be supported financially by the administration team.

The site differs from MacRumors and AppleInsider in that it does not have a front page with news feed and blog, rather the forum is the main page. However, AppleNova currently functions as Think Secret's forum.[4] The forum contains a Speculation sub-forum, Apple Products, third party products, Genius Bar (where users can ask technical questions) and AppleOutsider, where members can discuss any topic. AppleNova is also unique in that the post counts and reputation points are hidden from main thread views, as part of encouragement toward quality posts. [5]


MacBidouille

This French site used to report rumors, although they stopped for multiple reasons.[6] However, they still "speculate" from time to time, such as for the release of the G5.[7] 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 language version of it called HardMac.


MacScoop / MacosXrumors

Initiated in May 2002, the site 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 on September 2006, with MacosXrumors 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.


Others

The following sites are not considered major sources of rumors, currently. Some no longer exist.

  • MacEdition - The self-proclaimed "Mac Professional's Resource", was home to "The Naked Mole Rat Report", written by The Gay Blade, a pseudo-pseudonym for Mac the Knife.
  • As the Apple Turns - Once a popular Mac humor site, As the Apple Turns occasionally posted humorous predictions that were widely accurate. Regular postings slowed with the birth of the site's author's first child. The site has not been updated since October 12 2005.
  • Crazy Apple Rumors Site - In a similar vein to As the Apple Turns, Crazy Apple Rumors Site is a parody of the industry.
  • MacInsider.com - Entering this URL now leads to MacRumors.com.
  • bite.org - Famous for their brash attitude and proclamation "bookmark us, we're not going away". The domain is now owned by a domain squatter.
  • RAILhead Design - Once a popular blog, the site now appears to be largely dormant, with the exception of a news update posted on May 23 2006 declaring that the author is "not gone just yet". The site still features desktop pictures, icons, and fonts.
  • RhythMac - A rumor aggregation site similar to MacRumors.com, created with the aim of providing a single site that links to all rumors posted on the more popular and respected Apple rumor sites.
  • rumoresapple.com - New rumors site edited in Portuguese. This website is based in Portugal, and gathers information and rumors around the web for the Portuguese-speaking people around the world.
  • AppleRecon - Robert Morgan's site culled information from his "Recon For Investors" report (sold to investors through his company, Echo 4 Holdings), in an effort to add subscribers to the report. Morgan was hired by MacWEEK.com as an editor after MacWEEK became a website in 1998. The last AppleRecon update was in 2002, promising a phoenix-like return.

Apple's response

Apple's official stance on the Mac rumor scene has been one of disapproval.[citation needed] 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, registered by a member of said community, redirects to the rumor site AppleNova.

Long recurring rumors that came true

90's

  • Apple entering the video game console market (confirmed with the introduction of the Pippin. Speculations of a re-entry into this market or a buyout of Nintendo is still active as of 2007 )

2005

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)
  • 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, speculations of a "widescreen" iPod (without mobile phone capability) are still being discussed.
  • Return of the Newton: Somewhat came true with the iPhone (similar form factor, similar interface, also open for developers). Disputed by some, however, and speculation of Apple releasing a dedicated PDA once again is still rife.
  • Development of an advanced finger touch-screen device: confirmed with the release of the iPhone, which features a multi-touch technology. Speculations of such a technology being ported over to the iPod line is still active.
  • LED Screens for laptops: Came true with the introduction of LED 15" MacBook Pro in June 2007. Full implementation of LED screens for all Apple laptops have yet to happen.

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.[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ Ina Fried (2004-12-21). "Apple goes to court to smoke out product leaker". CNet News. Retrieved 2006-06-05. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ TechWeb (2005-01-13). "Apple Targets Harvard Student For Product 'Leaks'". Information Week. Retrieved 2006-01-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ http://forums.applenova.com/showthread.php?t=18
  4. ^ http://www.thinksecret.com/board/
  5. ^ http://forums.applenova.com/showthread.php?t=16723
  6. ^ http://www.macbidouille.com/news/2003-09-09/#6571
  7. ^ http://www.macbidouille.com/news/2002-10-16/#3664
  8. ^ "Team Stats". Folding@home. Retrieved 2007-01-08.
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