Rumor Roundup: 'The near future'

Apple's New Vision for Apple TV 'Less Ambitious' Than Before (MacRumors)

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has "scaled back" its plans for the next-gen Apple TV because of failed negotiations with cable companies. There is, of course, no way for us to know for certain that Apple's plans weren't more modest all along, and the loftier goals presented in the WSJ's reports could just as easily have been the typical sort of evidence-free nonsense birthed from analysts' maws.

That's not how the world of Apple rumors works, however. If Apple ever dares to release a product or service that doesn't measure up to analyst expectations, it's never the expectations that are at fault.

Apple set to discontinue legacy, non-Retina iPad 2 (AppleInsider)

"People familiar with Apple's plans" claim the iPad 2 will soon be pining for the fjords.

I read through this entire article three times, and I didn't see an actual discontinuation date other than "the near future" mentioned anywhere. "The near future" could mean literally anything. Thursday is the near future if you're a cosmetologist, while two million years from now is the near future if you're a cosmologist.

Without a more specific date, this rumor is essentially meaningless. Here's a variation on it: Apple will soon discontinue the iPad Air. What do I mean by soon? That's for me to know and you to speculate. Endlessly. Because pageviews.

Apple's iWatch won't take the same path as other failed smartwatches (BGR)

The headline of this story has almost nothing to do with what follows, which is just a reblogging of another site's report on more people with biomedical sensor expertise that Apple has hired.

Apple's 'iWatch' rumored to use optoelectronics to monitor heart rate, blood oxygen levels (AppleInsider)

Here, AppleInsider, let me fix that headline for you:

"Some analyst in China predicts Apple's 'iWatch' to use optoelectronics, has no proof whatsoever"

Minus several million more credibility points for mentioning Ming-Chi Kuo in the final paragraph and calling him a "well-connected analyst." Ming-Chi Kuo is about as well-connected as a string of Christmas lights that's been sitting in a garage since the 1940s.

Apple unlikely to launch 12.9" iPad or third-gen iPad mini in 2014, iPad Air to gain A8 & Touch ID (AppleInsider)

Speaking of everyone's favorite "well-connected insider," Ming-Chi Kuo has finally come off vacation and made his first out-of-nowhere prediction for 2014.

"Kuo has a strong track record with respect to predicting Apple's future product plans," AppleInsider claims. This simply isn't true. Kuo's accuracy record for 2013 was 50/50 at best. This is the same "well-connected insider" who spent at least the first half of last year claiming the iPad mini wouldn't get a Retina Display in 2013. "Accuracy" and this man's name do not belong in the same sentence, unless it's a sentence like, "Anyone claiming that Ming-Chi Kuo has a good accuracy record hasn't performed the slightest iota of due diligence."

Apple May Have Considered Purchasing Tesla, Researching Audio to Predict Heart Attacks (MacRumors)

The first part of this article is a laugh riot. Apple doesn't make name-brand acquisitions. Remember all those "reports" from a few years back insisting that Apple was in talks to buy Twitter? Now, remind me how many Twitters Apple owns today?

Apple makes small, strategic acquisitions of companies few people have ever heard of. Tesla is not one of those companies.

As for the second half of this report, a portable device that can warn its user of an impending heart attack would be a significant leap forward for medical technology. As for me, I eagerly await a computer-based olfactory sensor that can detect BS and permanently disable analysts' keyboards.