Macworld 2008 rumor report card: some hits, mostly misses
As far as novelty news goes, Apple tea leaf reading and rumor speculation seems fairly fruitless (no pun intended). Oh sure, just about everyone entertains the indulgence, even if it's only a debunk, but you can always count on a seemingly endless torrent of unnamed sources dishing the latest leaks leading up to Macworld (and any big Apple event). We were almost afraid to look, but we went ahead and compiled a report card for this year's predictions. Warning: it ain't pretty.
Please note, all rumors listed originate from sources at or close to Apple, feeding info to publications. This doesn't include sites or posts digging up evidential information, like the MacBook Air domain name stuff.
AppleInsider - MacBook ultraportable to have external optical drive: correct! Still, this was pretty clear, almost no ultraportables have optical drives. Being that there was no mention made of Remote Disc, we're gonna give this a half point.
AppleInsider (twice - our take both times) - MacBook ultraportable to have 13-inch LED-backlit display, internal NAND flash, SSD option: right, wrong, and right again (half point!).
Bloomberg (our take) - iPhone comes to Canada: nope.
Bloomberg (our take) - Warner Bros, Fox, Disney, Paramount and Lionsgate to rent on iTunes: nailed it!
Boy Genius Report (our take) - Jay Z and Apple found record label: not yet. (But who knows, it might be announced later!)
Boy Genius Report - Ultraportable absolutely definitely launching: correct!
BusinessWeek - Major Apple TV update planned (including a possible tuner), but Jobs can't get Universal and Sony to sign on for rentals: eh, vaguely right about the ATV update, but otherwise basically wrong.
Financial Times (our take) - Fox signed to movie rentals, and will also distribute pre-ripped iTunes movies on discs: totally correct!
Gizmodo - Macworld "will be bigger than usual" with "overloaded" keynote and tons of new product revisions: nope.
Macrumors (our take) - Lots of laptop upgrades, one with multi-touch trackpad: correct (kind of). There obviously weren't multiple notebook revisions, but the trackpad was dead on.
Macrumors forums (our take) - "Leaked" keynote #1: total fabrication.
Macrumors forums (our take) - MacBook ultraportable endowed with super-wide trackpad: so very wrong.
New York Times (our take) - Apple got more than just Fox to sign on for rentals: true. Half point, though, for lack of any specifics despite "multiple sources."
Variety (our take) - 24 hour rentals: correct!
Void Inside (our take) - "Leaked" keynote #2: also a total fabrication.
Wired - Details and description of the ultraportable: (mostly) wrong. Described as: thin, tapered profile with "aluminum and glass". Close! But we all knew it'd be thin and aluminum -- the multi-touch capable iMac-esque glass display gives this one away.
Total score: 7 / 16
MVP: AppleInsider
(We forgetting any?)
