Rumor Roundup: Farming the oceans, the Moon, and Antarctica
Apple rumor drinking game: Every time some rumor blog passes on baseless speculation from some analyst or unsourced nonsense from an Asian tech publication, take a sip. If the source is Gene Munster, Peter Misek, Brian White, or Ming-Chi Kuo, take three sips. If the source is Digitimes, finish your drink.
DISCLAIMER: Never, ever actually play this game with alcoholic beverages. You will die.
Cantor: Wearables now a 'legitimate' product category, but only an Apple 'iWatch' would drive sales (AppleInsider; also covered by BGR)
Brian "iRing" White thinks CES proves wearables are now a "legitimate" product category, but he doesn't think the wearable market will matter until Apple launches an iWatch.
Products exhibited at CES have been divorced from the reality of the consumer market for a long time. Remember when 3D TV was going to be the next big thing? How did that work out?
White's "iRing" speculation last year rendered him a laughingstock in an already crowded market of people whose musings about Apple should never be taken seriously. This piece is no exception.
Fewer than 0.01 percent of mobile apps will be financially successful by 2018, predicts Gartner (9to5 Mac; also covered by BGR)
Back in 2011, Gartner also predicted that Windows Phone handsets would outsell the iPhone by 2015. But let's pretend to care what they say anyway, just this once.
From the article: "Gartner predicts that fewer than one in 10,000 apps will be considered financially successful by their developers." And from Gartner's own press release: "Gartner is forecasting that, by 2017, 94.5 percent of downloads will be for free apps."
They also predict that 20 percent of enterprise BYOD programs will fail by 2016, and by 2019 we will have cities on the Moon, farms in Antarctica, flying cars, off-world colonies, constant rain, and androids so similar to humans that the only way to tell the difference will be to force them to watch Old Yeller. (If they don't shed a single tear, shoot first and ask questions later.)
One does not simply predict future trends so far out in a market this volatile and prone to rapid shifts in direction. It is folly.
Rumor: Apple to reintroduce 8GB iPhone 4 to curb flagging India sales (AppleInsider; also covered by BGR)
Some Asian tech publication claims that Apple will sell a stripped-down version of a three-year-old iPhone to chase after market share. Because if there's one thing Apple is all about, it's selling deliberately hobbled hardware in order to sell its products to as many people as possible.
Do any of these people actually pay attention to the company they're writing about?
You know those rumors that the iPhone 6 might launch as soon as May? Yeah, not so much... (BGR; also covered by MacRumors)
Source: "A new report from Digitimes" -BZZZT. Actually, this might well be the one report Digitimes actually gets right this year. Since they burned their card early, does this mean we can stop paying attention to their drivel for the rest of 2014? Please?
Next-gen iPhone may boast 5" 'full HD' display, flexible AMOLED for 'iWatch' (AppleInsider)
From the article: "The DisplaySearch projections are merely speculation, but the firm has seen some success in predicting Apple's hardware moves. As such, AppleInsider offers the following information for purposes of discussion only."
Discussion? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Either that or you never turned off autocorrect on your Mac, and it keeps changing "pageviews" to "discussion" when you type.
Anyway, since this entire "report" from DisplaySearch is pure speculation, it's not even worth looking at the specifics. Anyone can guess what Apple will do in the coming months. If it's not news when some guy on a street corner predicts the Apocalypse will happen on June 13, why is it news when DisplaySearch throws some chicken bones on the floor and, with no legitimate sources for its information, predicts what Apple will do in the coming year?
