“If you’ve been following the legal ruckus surrounding Apple’s ‘Asteroid leak’ case, you know what happened: Someone leaked details of Asteroid, a breakout box for use with GarageBand, and some websites published the info. Apple then subpoenaed their email records to discover the identity of the leaker, and the websites went to court to protect their journalistic integrity,” Anne Onymus writes for Low End Mac. “there’s a fact that everyone seems to be overlooking – after over two years, Apple hasn’t released a breakout box for use with GarageBand.”
“The company has transitioned its Macs to Intel CPUs, introduced a plethora of new iPods, and even created a speaker system for the iPod, yet they haven’t released Asteroid. Sound suspicious? It should,” Onymus writes. “Since it hasn’t happened, it’s time to reveal the truth: Apple never intended to release ‘Asteroid’ to market.”
Full article here.
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That darn Apple…..pulling our legs again. Steve, you got us again!
If Apple wasn’t going to release “Asteroid” to the market, then there’s no harm.
If there’s no harm, then there’s no justification for the strong-arm against the press.
An egomaniac CEO does not justify Nixonian tactics against independent third parties.
This whole story is very confusing. Why develop this product and not release it? I see no downside to make garage band better and easier to use. Maybe it was going to be too expensive. I can’t believe that Apple isn’t going to release because of something to do with this leak case. Maybe it ended up being way too expensive?
“Sudden Impact: Apple’s Great Asteroid Hoax”
In other news, Clint Eastwood and Jerry Bruckheimer will be teaming up on the made-for-TV movie. It could be a breakout hit.
about releasing a product in development. The fact that Asteroid never went on sale tells us nothing.
“Maybe it was going to be too expensive. I can’t believe that Apple isn’t going to release because of something to do with this leak case. Maybe it ended up being way too expensive?”
Or maybe Apple is licensing the technology to a an outside company with their own development schedule. Just a guess. It would still have NDAs and secrecy attached.
Simple rule, bozos: You ruin my surprises, you don’t get them.
I do so enjoy using MY Asteroid each and every day.
Nah-nah-na-na-nah!
A dragnet! That’s why Apple is being so hard-headed about this.
It could come in handy in the future, however, for a company to establish the “legal right” to get names of sources from writers on gossip sites. Maybe thats all this was about. Maybe the so called “leak” has aready received and spent that nice bonus for his/her work in this endevor.
Ummmm! Conspiricy!
However… We all know how friendly Apple is to its consumers. This could be the next step for Apple to protect its users who have started Podcasting, blogging, and other forms of self journalism that Apple has helped to pioneer and advocate.
What Apple has done is set a precedence.
All of these people who want to do their own investigative journalism, and post it on their own blog, are now protected THANKS TO APPLE.
So if anything, the “Nixonian tactics” as alluded to above, have resulted in a win for the general public, and a win for Apple that will allow people to stay so interested in future “secret” projects from Apple that they can post them without fear of persecution. Free press for Apple.
If this is the way it went down, it’s freaking brilliant.
My guess is that Apple was never working on a “breakout box,” but rather was working with M-Audio to ensure that their iControl controller could be tightly integrated w/ GarageBand.
See below for information on iControl.
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/iControl-main.html
Well… I’ve got the real scoop.
They just applied some Preparation A-hole on their Asteroids and then it went away.
Step One: Apple (Stevie) are getting might p*ssed at all the leaks.
Step Two: Stevie wants heads to roll ‘Who’s the Mole?!?!?’
Step Three: ‘Invent’ a new product – tell a core team – see how quick the story is leaked.
Step Four: Leak plugged…
There never was ‘Asteriod’ it was quite simply bait.
It’s a classic method for finding a mole. control the flow of information. release different information to different selected people selected of leaking.
see what gets leaked.
you now know who the leak is.
then you quietly eliminate him/her.
problem solved.
No Asteroid?!? Release it anyway. It sounds like a great… NO… Terrific product. Apple needs more products like that.
MDN Magic Word: Gone.
Do you really think Apple releases every product they develop?
There are tons of products that go through full development that never see the light of day.
Nothing to see here folks. Move along.
Of course it overlooks the issue, that frequently rumor sites post information that is wrong; and Apple took advantage by selecting the rumor that had the least amount of credibility for becoming truth and sued on that.
Come on, what were they going to sue on—the rumors of a video iPod?? Well the original rumors were wrong, as were secondary rumors, various mock-ups, etc.; and the rumors did cause a swelling of disappointment in the Mac community (and the iPod community); but ultimately though off by quite a bit of time the rumors proved true. I attribute this not to the rumor mills clairvoyance; but do to the fact everyone knew that a video iPod was “a” next step for the iPod. The issue was just a matter of when and what will it look like.
The Asteroid project is one of the few Apple rumors that seemed to have little base in things we all know somehow (Apple will change the finder, Apple will update the iPod, a new version of Mac OS X will come out, etc.). So it’s just as credible that Apple scanned the rumors looking for one they could sue on that wouldn’t prove true within the normal life of a lawsuit.
iMatt is on the money. Asteroid was/is the iControl manufactured by m-audio.
Conspiracy Theorist, meet Clueless.
Clueless, this is Conspiracy Theorist.
Now, go play with each other.
Apple could’ve intended to release it but then decided not to due to market, technological, or emotional (Jobs was mad!) considerations.
Or
Apple never intended to release such a product but went through the motions so as to expose an internal leak … and then did a poor job of doing so as they have yet to find the leaker.
Which sounds simpler???
“Since it hasn’t happened, it’s time to reveal the truth: Apple never intended to release ‘Asteroid’ to market.”
As usual, small minds (minds that have no concept of intellectual property rights) ignore the bigger issue, and that issue is this: In suing the rumorblogs for the identity of the ‘leaker’, Apple scared the hell out of the ‘leaker’, and everybody else that might have been tempted to do the same thing.
Apple wants control of its message. Leakers corrupt Apple’s ability to do so. I say emphatically: Good for you Apple.
I’m not disputing the public’s right to access to a free press, but if I was heading up a team working on a ‘secret’ project (secret, so it will be a surprise, get it…?) and someone from the inside leaked it to their connections in the media, usually for their own gain/aggrandizement/whatever… it would piss me off severely (understatement..!) I would want to know who it was, so I could get rid of them. Why is this so difficult to grasp for some people? It’s not like they’re being whistleblowers, they’re just feeding the rumor/gossip mills and obviously doing it in violation of their employment agreement. If it was me, and you worked for me and did that, I’d want you exposed so all your future employers could see what your character and loyalty values look like. Fair’s fair. In the military you’d be shot for treason. I wonder why? <sarcasm…>
What I dont get is i have a pirated version of windows, but i still get the advantage thingy…
anyone wanna explain that one to me?
huh?
I don’t think people are upset that Apple is trying to find the mole. People are upset at how they are going about it. If you value the role of the press in getting information out to the public (particularly of more substantive issue like gov’t corruption, etc), than you have to protect the press across the board.