“If you were following Apple back in 2010, you remember the infamous iPhone 4 leak,” Michael Simon writes for Macworld. “The handset that introduced the world to FaceTime, the Retina display, and a stunning design that lives on to this day in the iPhone SE was plastered all over Gizmodo some two months before its formal introduction. Even in the age of rumor sites and Reddit, it was a rare red-faced moment for Apple.”
“And from the looks of it, it has happened again,” Simon writes. “No, the iPhone 8 wasn’t left in a California bar by an absent-minded Apple employee, but a ton of information about the next iPhone was inadvertently leaked by an unscrupulous engineer.”
“A pre-release version of the HomePod firmware was accidentally uploaded to a public server earlier this week, and naturally, developers quickly downloaded it and starting digging for clues,” Simon writes. “And boy were there a lot of them.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s biggest iPhone since the original iPhone and, in a nutshell, Apple blew their big reveal; the first to be held in the Steve Jobs Theater (if they finish it in time). If the company is functioning anywhere near properly, the Apple employee(s) that stupidly f’ed this up should be gone already.
The original Mac team taught me that A-plus players like to work together, and they don’t like it if you tolerate B-grade work. — Steve Jobs
SEE ALSO:
How did Apple’s self-inflicted ‘iPhone 8’ leakapalooza happen? – August 3, 2017
Apple’s leaked HomePod firmware shows iPhone 8 likely to abandon Touch ID in favor of ‘Pearl ID’ facial recognition – August 3, 2017
Apple’s HomePod firmware leak confirms inductive charging in ‘iPhone 8’ – August 1, 2017
Apple’s leaked firmware suggests ‘iPhone 8’ with split status bar, no Touch ID under display, and function area – August 1, 2017
Here are Apple’s HomePod UI sounds – August 1, 2017
Apple’s leaked code confirms facial expression detection and virtual Home button – August 1, 2017
Apple leaks iPhone 8 design – July 31, 2017
Apple’s HomePod will support VoiceOver, other accessibility features – July 28, 2017
Leaked recording: Inside Apple’s global war on leakers – June 20, 2017
Does anyone know if the homepod will connect to a tv as a sound bar replacement?
You will very likely be able to stream the audio from the Apple TV (4th gen. or later) to HomePod or multiple HomePods via AirPlay 2.
Any speaker with Airplay 1 currently has this.
No, and moreover you would not want it to do so. Latency and dropouts remain issues with consumer wireless stuff. If you want a cohesive audio/video experience, stick to wired speakers and place them properly.
Was the leak deliberate? A great way to keep undecideds from buying an Android phone until the next iPhone is released.
Never attribute to guerilla marketing that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Far, far too much was leaked for it to have been planned just to attempt to freeze some of the market for two months.
So much for doubling down on security, Apple. What a cockup!
(Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.)
If Steve never fired Gray Powell for leaving iPhone 4 prototype in a bar, I’m not sure why would Cook be expected to fire some coder who uploaded some beta code on some server.
Excuse my ignorance here, but why would all this code be in the HomePod software in the first place? I get that HomePod would propbably use some form of iOS, but wouldn’t all the phone stuff be pretty much removed for efficiency?
I think it has to do with the devices that are allowed to talk to the HomePod, and the way they get to talk to it. While HomePod will likely be able to connect to any bluetooth device as a generic bluetooth speaker, when you pair it with an iPhone, it gets much more functionality, and its internal OS probably needs to know what type of iPhone is connecting, in order to make specific type of functionality available.
Who says that it was unintentional?
You cannot buy the kind of buzz the drip, drip, drip of rumors, scoops and hints gets and the miles of copy it gets.
All for free.