Mac Musings

Where Are the Rumor Sites?

10 December 1999 - Daniel Knight

Think Secret, Nick de Plume's Mac rumor site, has been missing in action for about two weeks.

AppleInsider hasn't posted a juicy scoop since the start of the month.

Mac OS Rumors seems to be the only active Apple rumor site - unless I've missed one. And it's been the subject of a lot of criticism and parody for the past months (see mosr.net as one example).

What's going on here?

I enjoy a good rumor as much as the next Mac addict. Some are plausible, other preposterous, and others (Mac OS X on Intel?) really get the neurons firing.

Just before Apple released the new iMacs, the rumor sites and several news and fan sites were taken to task by Apple legal for publishing purportedly authentic specs and photos of Kihei (Apple's code name for the second generation iMac).

I know - I was on the receiving end, albeit in a very roundabout manner. (Apple emailed my ISP about my site content. To this date, they have never emailed me, although it's my email address that appears all over this site. See Kihei Pictures Pulled for more details.)

Has Nick de Plume thrown in the towel, received a restraining order, or been bought out? Are there really no hot new rumors for AppleInsider to publish - Mac OS Rumors certainly thinks otherwise.

Is it a conspiracy?

The entire Macintosh community (or continuum, to use a term advocated by Rodney O. Lain) knows Apple - and Steve Jobs in particular - has little love for the independent Mac web site, let alone the rumor mongers. In fact, Jobs recently issued an edict that nobody would get credit for any work they do for Apple. Not only will this help prevent employee poaching from other firms, it will also make it that much harder for rumor sites to find sources.

Or so the theory goes.

I miss my daily dose of rumors. Sure, Ryan at MOSR keeps coming up with a few, but the other sources have dried up. AppleInsider was pretty accurate. And Think Secret was developing into a nice rumor and content web site.

I hope both are simply on hiatus. I hope there's no conspiracy to shut down the rumor sites. Even when they're wrong, the help us think different.

Rumor Sites

• AppleInsider
• Mac OS Rumors
• Think Secret