“Philip Elmer-DeWitt and Harry McCracken authored a couple of great posts chronicling the bizarre way in which Apple rumors routinely get transmogrified into “OH MY STARS, DID YOU SEE THIS?” headlines,” Charles Cooper reports for CNET. “My only beef is that they got down to writing this before I did.”
For years, Digitimes has been a high-profile rumormonger when it comes to upcoming Apple products, usually crediting its gossip to the Asian component makers who supply Apple with bits and pieces of technology. (The publication says, for instance, that ‘sources from the upstream supply chain’ told it about the $799 Air.) Its stories get covered widely — sometimes by writers who pause to express a certain degree of doubt, and sometimes by ones who don’t.
But the thing is, Digitimes isn’t just wrong some of the time. When it comes to the big Apple stories, it’s wrong most of the time. Sometimes wildly so. It’s reported that its sources had said that Apple was going to release MacBooks with AMD processors, iMacs with touch screens, iPhones with built-in projectors and iPads with OLED displays. Those products, and others mentioned in Digitimes articles, never showed up. – Harry McCracken
If Gou really said this, it would be — for all the reasons stated above — very big news. So how is it that none of the other reporters covering the event heard it? Not Reuters’ John Ruwitch. Not Bloomberg’s Tim Culpin. Not the AP’s Elaine Kurtenbach. It is possible that the China Daily reporter misheard or misunderstood Gou’s remarks? Or that his report was mistranslated? Or that a desk editor or rewrite person mangled it? – Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Read more in the full article here.
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I heard they were about to release an app that turns lead into gold, making it possible for Apple fans to pay any price for the newest technology. WOW.. what a halo effect that will be! I can’t wait..
If true, then I’d use the app to turn a brown zune into something more valuable!
A Dell DJ? ROFL
I heard RIM was about to release an app that turns gold into lead.
Actually, Wall Street is distributing an app that turns gold into lead . . . and it’s going viral right now.
Maybe “upstream component suppliers” were asked to make some prototype Macs with AMD components, etc, but those were for testing. That gets blown-up into, “Apple is switching to AMD!,” but those never made it into a shipping product.
Rumor mongering is another form of stock manipulation. Load up on “features” pre some event, meedja trumpets “features”, then watch stock drop when reality makes an entrance. Repeat.
Why link to CNET’s Cooper story? Why not link straight to the original article? Cooper is an Apple-hater.
Okay, link to it.
DigiTimes is less than worthless.
MDN, do you really aspire to this description?
“[DigiTimes] stories get covered widely — sometimes by writers who pause to express a certain degree of doubt….”
Please stop passing along their waste. Or, at least put DigiTimes in the headline, so I can skip those articles.