Rumor Roundup: More questionable reports

Microsoft's pulse-tracking smartwatch rumored to land in time for holidays ahead of Apple Watch (9to5 Mac)

Source: "People familiar with the matter"

Chance it's true: Oh, it's too good not to be true.

So here's the question: will this rumored Microsoft watch be prone to a Red Ring of Death via terrible hardware or constant Blue Screens of Death via terrible software?

The answer, of course, is likely both. But Microsoft will still probably sell twice as many smartwatches as it has Surface tablets. So... two.

Spotify Lowers Its Music Prices, Using a Family Plan. Apple Wants to Go Lower (re/code)

Source: "Industry scuttlebutt"

Chance it's true: 100 percent

re/code claims Apple is looking to reduce the price of a Beats Music subscription to $5 per month. re/code says a lot of things about Apple. And so far, all of them have come true.

AAPL will announce record quarter, predict analysts, with earnings up 11.9% (9to5 Mac)

Source: Analysts

Chance it's true: Let's find out.

Analyst expectations (averaged):

• Revenue of $40.1 billion

• 37.9 million iPhones

• 13.2 million iPads

• 4.8 million Macs

Actual numbers:

• Revenue of $42.1 billion

• 39.2 million iPhones

• 12.3 million iPads

• 5.5 million Macs

So, off by $2 billion in revenue, by over a million iPhones, nearly a million iPads, and well over half a million Macs.

These people, these "analysts" get paid real money for what they do. Just a reminder. More to myself than anything, because it's frankly astonishing.

Apple Reportedly Preparing Holiday Launch of Apple Pay Loyalty Rewards Program (MacRumors)

Source: "People familiar with the matter"

Chance it's true: 50/50

The source of this report hasn't had enough of a track record yet to give it more than even odds. From my point of view, this news doesn't even matter; all I'm interested in, as someone who lives in the rather large part of the world that's not the United States, is when Apple Pay will work at all where I am.

#COLORGATE? #RUBGATE? #DYEGATE? A HUGE new iPhone 6 problem has just been uncovered (BGR)

Here's the latest from the team at BGR:

"Some iPhone owners who don't cover their phones with a protective case are finding that after sliding an iPhone in and out of the pockets on their jeans for a period of time, some of the dye from the denim is rubbing off onto the plastic strips on the back of the phone.

The result is an unsightly discoloration that makes the iPhone look dirty and old. Conventional soaps and other cleaning products one might use in an effort to remove the darkening on the plastic strips apparently have not worked."

In the vacant, desiccated brains of BGR writers, this apparently counts as a HUGE iPhone 6 problem. It surely must be, because zero other rumor blogs chose to cover the issue.

I would like to think this means BGR has officially hit the bottom of the barrel... but every time I think that, they go deeper still. It is with a sense of morbid curiosity that I wait to see what they'll come up with next.