Rumor Roundup: Running with percentages
The trouble with last week's 2014 Rumor Retrospective: it took eight hours to research and compile a 6000-word post, and I was up until two in the morning writing it. I went into my day job the next day with a brain firing on maybe 3 of 12 cylinders. Insomnia: because playing the game of life on Easy Mode is for wusses.
The upshot of going through all that: from now on I have a reference sheet to fall back upon to determine how likely a rumor is to be true based on its source. No more of this touchy-feely "analysts are almost never right" stuff. I've got hard numbers now. And I'm not afraid to use them.
Before I get to the ten stupid rumors that have come out in the past few days, I'll first visit a few that fell through the cracks last week.
Macotakara: 4.7-inch iPhone called 'iPhone 6′, 5.5-inch model 'iPhone 6 Plus' (9to5 Mac)
Source: Some Japanese website
True: Yes
Macotakara was spot-on. 9to5 Mac said "this naming convention does not seem incredibly likely," which leads me to believe that whatever sources they may have once had within Apple are gone, daddy, gone.
Both 4.7-Inch and 5.5-Inch iPhone 6 Models Reportedly Launching on September 19 (MacRumors)
Source: Some French website
True: Yes
My favourite part of this report is how MacRumors tries to rationalize it against the contrasting predictions of "accurate" analyst Ming-Chi Kuo - predictions which were later proven to be completely wrong.
This might be Apple's secret sauce for the iWatch (BGR)
Source: A bunch of analysts
True: Too early to tell
Apple didn't mention any advanced medical monitoring features for the Apple Watch at its keynote. The device is still several months away from launch, though, so there's always a chance this could still happen. Given that the source of this "report" is a bunch of analysts, however, the odds of this actually happening are roughly 30 percent.
This is big: Apple's iWatch is reportedly getting PayPal support (BGR)
Source: Some website
True: Too early to tell
Apple certainly didn't mention PayPal during its keynote. Instead, it announced its own payment program: Apple Pay, which will indeed be integrated into the Apple Watch.
Third-party support for PayPal could be added later on down the line, however, which is why this rumor can't be dismissed out of hand immediately.
★ Prelude to Tomorrow's Big-Ass iPhone Apple Event (Daring Fireball)
Source: Legitimately intelligent analysis
True: Mostly
With the sole exception of the iPhone 6 Plus's screen resolution, Gruber pretty much nailed it.
Mayo Clinic to Reportedly Help Present iOS 8's Health App at Apple's Media Event (MacRumors)
Source: Some Minnesooootan newspaper
True: Nope
This didn't happen. It's anyone's guess if it was ever going to happen.
And now for the recent crop of rumors...
Alleged iPhone 6 Geekbench Results Reveal 1.4 GHz Dual-Core A8 Chip, 1 GB of RAM (MacRumors)
Source: Some Chinese website
Odds it's true: About 50/50
Although I can't remember a time when Geekbench results like this were successfully faked, the source of this rumor still gives me pause. This needs confirmation from a second source before it's worth calling this plausible.
Apple rumored to be in acquisition talks with Path for another attempt at social networking (9to5 Mac)
Source: "People familiar with the matter"
Odds it's true: About 90 percent
Stories sourced from "people familiar with the matter" within Apple turn out to be true a staggeringly large amount of the time. Whether it actually makes sense for Apple to acquire/acquihire Path or not is another matter. Apple's prior efforts at social networking (*cough*Ping*cough*) haven't exactly taken the world by storm, and even though all the major players in social networking seem to be almost going out of their way to violate the trust of the very users who made them popular in the first place, they still have an almost insurmountable mindshare cache in place.
Notably, this rumor did not receive the "nope" treatment from legitimately well-connected Jim Dalrymple of The Loop, so there's that.
It appears that the iPhone 5c experiment won't soon be repeated (BGR)
Source: BGR stupidity
Odds it's true: Not even remotely plausible
In its ongoing, Quixotic quest to paint the iPhone 5c as a failure, BGR is now claiming that the lack of an iPhone 6c announcement is somehow proof that this "failed experiment" won't soon be repeated.
BGR must have been asleep, drunk or high for the portion of the keynote where it was announced that the iPhone 5c is now free on contract. That's huge. The 5c is essentially the guts of an iPhone 5 in a plastic shell, and people can get one for zero dollars. Zero. Dollars.
I'd bet a stack of coins that John Gruber's prediction for 2015 is correct, and next year's "5c" device ends up being largely the same, but with iPhone 5s internals and Touch ID added on. That gives Apple until late 2016 to figure out what its "free on contract" option will be. As that's more than two years in the future, I wouldn't even dare to hazard a guess what that might be.
The point is, Apple's "failure flop" iPhone 5c is proving to be a shrewder move than the dopes at BGR seem to be capable of comprehending.
Apple Watch Battery Life - "Charge Nightly" (re/code)
Source: "People familiar with the matter"
Odds it's true: 100 percent
re/code's sources within Apple are rock-solid. More than that, this makes perfect sense. If Apple were thrilled with the current battery life on the Apple Watch, they'd have crowed about it onstage at the keynote. Instead, it barely got mentioned, and the "hands-on" area was very carefully managed.
Getting decent battery life out of something small enough to be worn on your wrist may well be the biggest engineering challenge Apple has faced since developing the original iPhone. In fact, this may be worse, because battery technology doesn't have an equivalent of Moore's Law.
It's likely that the first-gen Apple Watch's battery life will be underwhelming when it launches. It's equally likely - one might call it certain - that the second-gen version will have "improved battery life" as a tentpole feature.
Sketchy supply-chain report says production gearing-up for 80M iPhone 6 sales this year (9to5 Mac)
Source: Digitimes
Odds it's true: Snowball's chance in Hell
Digitimes' accuracy record for 2014 is a whopping zero percent. It is truly mystifying why anyone still pays attention to them.
Apple's Ultra-Slim 12-Inch Notebook Coming in Mid-2015 With Silver, Gold, and Space Gray Options? (MacRumors)
Source: Some analyst
Odds it's true: 30 percent - at best
I've never heard of this analyst before, the device in question has no sources for its existence other than the ravings of other analysts, the rumored launch date is comfortably far enough in the future that people will forget about it if (when) this doesn't happen, the claims in the report itself are outlandish, and MacRumors has the temerity to use Digitimes nonsense as corroborating evidence.
Analysts are the worst possible source of Apple news, and this "report" has all the hallmarks of a steaming pile of techno-poo.
Future Versions of Apple Watch to Include Additional Sensors, 'Richer Health Features' (MacRumors)
Source: "People familiar with the matter"
Odds it's true: 100 percent
The big question here is not whether future versions of the Apple Watch will have additional functionality beyond that announced for the first-gen product. That's such an obvious "yes" that it barely merits mentioning. What's really worth asking is whether this "ten sensor" and "rich health tracking" features stuff was ever in the running for the first-gen Apple Watch to begin with, or if it was all just the typical BS where people expect a new Apple product to do absolutely everything possible under the sun right out of the box, on day one.
Because people had such overinflated expectations for this device, it will of course be branded "disappointing" even after it launches and sells by the millions. When the second-gen version addresses most of the initial model's shortcomings, it'll be "proof" that Apple is only capable of incremental improvements and has forgotten how to innovate. When the third-gen is another incremental improvement, the tech press will go absolutely nuts trying to find new ways to predict Apple's doom.
By the time the fourth-gen Apple Watch gets lost in a bar and leaked on Gizmodo announced at an Apple keynote, it will be everything anyone dreamed the current version could be - and more - but it will still, somehow, be "disappointing."
And there you have it: Apple Watch tech punditry through the year 2017.
Report claims 27-inch Retina iMac w/ 5K display will arrive by end of year (9to5 Mac)
Source: Taiwanese website
Odds it's true: 30 percent
Sources from Taiwan haven't had a particularly high accuracy record, and the cited report only mentions Apple in passing, toward the end of the media release, almost in a completely throwaway fashion.
Square reportedly declined $3B Apple acquisition offer [update: nope] (AppleInsider)
Source: "People familiar with the matter"
Odds it's true: Nope
Right after I get done issuing praise for how often these PFWTM rumors are, this one turns out to be completely bogus after getting the "nope" from Jim Dalrymple.
Gold 'Apple Watch Edition' could cost $1,200, industry insiders say (AppleInsider)
Source: Some dudes or other
Odds it's true: Man, like, who knows?
From the article: "At this point [...] tacking a price on the high-end Apple Watch Edition is largely guesswork." I'm surprised AppleInsider didn't roll out that tired old excuse that this speculative nonsense was "offered for purposes of discussion."
Here's my prediction, based on just as much evidence as these jokers had - which is to say, "none at all": the high-end Apple Watch Edition will either cost surprisingly less than "insiders" are expecting or significantly more than "normal" people are expecting.
I'm not a fan of gold, so the point is moot for me. It's black anodised aluminium for all of my portable electronics, thank you... black as pitch, black as night, black as the abyss that stares back.
