When fictional ‘US$499 Headless iMac’ doesn’t materialize, the disappointment could hurt Apple

21 years ago

The “Headless iMac” is a fantasy, Bill Palmer assets for billpalmer.net.

Palmer writes, “Look at what we’re left with here. All the discussion [about Apple] now centers around a theoretical product that doesn’t exist, never will exist, never had any chance of ever existing…and yet now, this non-existent entity is the center of attention of the platform. So guess what happens when Steve Jobs gets up there on stage in January and doesn’t launch this non-existent product? That’ll be the story — that the headless iMac didn’t happen. And what about all the actual, real-world, legitimate products that he does announce that day? They’ll either be swept under the rug entirely, or they’ll be pooh-poohed in comparison to a fantasy product that never existed.

“In other words, this false rumor has quite possibly already destroyed any chance that Apple had of making a splash at MacWorld Expo,” Palmer writes. “But the bottom line is that we’re left with a worthless Mac Web for the next month, but that’s just the beginning of the problems. You see, because the “headless iMac” rumor sounds good in theory until you actually spend five minutes dissecting it, the rumor is getting picked up rather quickly by mainstream news sites. Being reported as a done deal, for that matter. So now we’ve got these false expectations crawling all over the news wires, and the whole world is now under the false expectation that this false rumor is actually going to happen. And unbelievably, some idiot Wall Street analyst has gone and reported it as fact, meaning that the fate of Apple’s stock price now hinges on this BS rumor as well.”

Palmer looks at what he think actually will happen at Macworld Expo and concludes, “…when you stop and realize that there will likely be a few less Switchers in 2005 as a direct result of this phony ‘headless iMac’ rumor, you’ll want the dweeb who fabricated it hanging from a tree as badly as I do.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Palmer’s been very clear on his stance: the “Headless $499 iMac” is a fantasy. If this rumor turns out to be false, Palmer will stand proudly while ThinkSecret and AppleInsider will get their just desserts. And vice versa, if this rumor proves true. Hopefully, Apple will somehow emerge from all of this relatively unscathed, regardless of what they announce at Macworld. MacDailyNews’ stance, as always, is that this is a rumor only. Nothing official has been stated by Apple either way regarding this “Headless Mac” rumor. We’re waiting until Steve Jobs’ January 11th Keynote Presentation at Macworld Expo to see what Apple has to announce for real and reporting on what other media outlets are writing and saying about Apple, as usual.