Rumor Roundup: Vindicated rather than vindictive
Following the non-bombshell, non-revelation from a non-accurate analyst earlier this week that Apple might be making a stylus for the iPad, the rumor fires cooled considerably, with only two of note seeping through the cracks.
After eating Intel's mobile lunch, Apple could next devour Qualcomm's Baseband Processor business (AppleInsider)
Another brilliant report from Daniel Eran Dilger (one of my favourite Apple writers at the moment) makes a compelling case that Apple may be looking at manufacturing its own baseband chips for the iPhone. Apple currently sources these chips from Qualcomm at a surprisingly high cost - higher than the cost of the iPhone's CPU itself, if bill of material estimates are to be believed.
Dilger's analysis of the trouble Qualcomm faces is both well-reasoned and a good read. Whether any of his predictions eventuate remains to be seen, but it seems likely.
Analysts See Record-Breaking Sales for iPhone and Mac in Holiday Quarter (MacRumors)
Source: Some analyst
Chance it's true: Probable
It won't come as any surprise at all if Apple sets sakes records in this most recent financial quarter. People looooove them some iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, including me; the iPhone 6 is the best version of the iPhone I've owned, and I've owned most of them. What will be surprising is if these analysts hit the number right on the head with their predictions; these people are usually off by millions of units, which makes it very difficult to take them seriously.
As an aside, here's my prediction from earlier this week on how BGR would react to the stylus rumor:
At time of writing, BGR had not yet chimed in with its own take on this rumor. Knowing their typical modus operandi, here's my prediction of their headline:
GOOD NEWS, APPLE FANS: iPad Pro will come with a stylus
This will be followed by some wide-eyed worship of Kuo's accuracy record, snarky digs at Steve Jobs's hatred of styluses, and likely some BS or other about how Apple is "playing catchup" to Samsung, because they've had styluses for years. The actual "content" bit of the article (in other words, the condensed reblogging of the original source's main points) will fit within a paragraph.
I pretty much nailed it, except BGR's linkbaity headline was even worse than I imagined: "Here's why Apple's upcoming 'iPad Pro' will be a failure, according to Steve Jobs" is what they went with. BGR then spent more time in this article throwing poo over what Steve Jobs said five years ago than they spent on what "the world's most accurate analyst" (sic) said this week.
The Macalope's takedown of BGR's latest wet splat of an article is definitely worth a read. I've often wondered if I was edging toward being too mean toward BGR and their, um, interesting approach to tech journalism, but seeing the Macalope utterly skewer them makes me feel closer to vindicated than vindictive.
