Normalkid

Gizmodo posted and then retracted a rumor that they posted from someone who emailed them and purported to be from a Google Product Marketing Manager.

Engadget goes on to “debunk” this rumor, making a big deal about it.

Gizmodo even goes so far as to say that this is the reason why you should “Never ever trust rumors.” I’ll counter and say, this is why you should never ever trust rumors from sites that don’t regularly deal in Apple rumors. Now I think Gizmodo and Engadget do a great job in general, but they’ve never been a reliable source of original Apple rumors.

It’s no shock to me that someone submitted fake rumors to a popular gadget site. Submitting fake Apple rumors has been a long time sport. MacRumors gets fake submissions on a daily basis. If we posted every submission that sounded at all plausible, we would lose a lot of respect from our regulars.

A couple of supposed Apple leaks have been distributed over the net over the past week. Rightfully so, each time people question the authenticity of the images that are “leaked”.

In the first instance, some iPod user interface videos were leaked (and later pulled)

In the second, photos of a keyboard purporting to be an unreleased slim iMac keyboard was revealed (and never pulled).

With any supposed image leak, many self-proclaimed experts come out of the woodwork dissecting the images and video with “proof” about why said image is real or fake. For the record, in these instances, the general initial response leaned towards the iPod UI videos being fake (not designed by Apple) and the Keyboard being real (designed by Apple).

This general impression continued despite Apple’s Legal involvement with the iPod UI interface videos, and a notable lack of intervention with the iMac Keyboard photo.

In reading through comments across the web, there were some common claims. I’ve taken samples of these and quoted them here:

1. “Apple were probably the ones that requested this fake news be taken off the website” – GreenAlien

2. “Folks, Apple Legal always gets involved” – tobsterius

3. “…though it should be noted that Apple Legal has previously sought to squelch rumors of products that never materialized. The failed attempt to sue sources from the supposed “Asteroid” breakout box for GarageBand comes to mind.” – Charles Jade/Ars Technica

If you read on, I’ll show that, historically…

1) Apple Legal never gets involved for Images/Video of Fake Products
2) Apple Legal always gets involved for Images/Video Real Products
3) Apple Legal never asked Asteroid information to be pulled

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MacRumors.com has been around for a while now… over 7 years. And in that time I’d like to think that the site has earned some credibility amongst its regular readers.

We take rumors seriously — well before it was popular to do so — and we certainly don’t make up stories just to draw traffic.

But it’s one thing to say that, but another for readers to really believe it.

Recently, the site had a run in with Apple’s legal team which required us to remove some content from the site. As always, the removal itself generated a big stir/discussion.

Some outside users not familiar with the site even questioned whether or not we might have just made up the legal request. Responses to that accusation (from random passersby) included:

Because [MacRumors.com] doesn’t bullshit on things like that. They’re fairly conservative with their reporting, actually, have a whole section devoted to sketchy rumors, and note skeptically the history of sites when linking. — lookmark

and

MacRumors is a trusted source. They don’t post fake [Cease and Desists]. — MMissive

These comments in particular made me proud of MacRumors.

Financial analysts are a funny thing in the Apple rumor world.

With increasing media coverage of everything Apple, as well as the impressive growth of their stock, it seems financial analysts are covering Apple in increasing detail and frequency.

I won’t claim to know the business side of these analyst publications, but they have become a frequent topic in the Mac rumor world since analyst reports frequently predict Apple’s future plans.

However, from a rumor-analysis standpoint, these analyst reports tend to offer very little new information and introduce a fair amount of confusion.

My major problem with analyst reports is that they never cite their sources and intermix speculation into their predictions. It then becomes impossible to determine the original source of the information and its credibility. Frequently it seems they are simply reciting information that has already been reported on the internet. This may not be important to financial customers (admittedly, their target audience) but from a predictive standpoint, makes their information next to useless.

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Engadget published a report today claiming that Apple was delaying Leopard until Jan 2008 and the iPhone until October.

We hesitatingly republished this report with some caveats.

As it turns out, the report was wrong, but I don’t necessarily blame Engadget. The circumstances surrounding this rumor were unusual, to say the least. Someone actually managed to spoof an email to Apple staffers through an official Apple email distribution list. As a result, it must have seemed quite legitimate.
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