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iMac, Mac Mini Updates November 11 According to… Pure Speculation

Written on October 29, 2008 by Darrell Etherington and 8 people have commented

When it rains it pours, and the current outlook is calling for torrents of speculation regarding iMac and Mac mini updates from Apple. Just to show how desperate people can be for any shred of “information” regarding Cupertino, let’s look at the latest bit of “news” making the rounds.

Yesterday, Macsimumnews.com published a piece in which editor David Sellers claims to be “pretty sure” that the iMac and Mac mini will see updates on or before Tuesday, Nov. 10 (it’s actually the 11th). He makes no mention of sources, and the article is categorized as an opinion piece.

Which didn’t stop 9to5mac from posting about the piece under the banner “iMac, Mac Pro upgrades loom?” Loom? It hardly seems valid to suggest updates are “looming” based on the guesswork of a single Apple journalist, even if he does have experience in the industry.

MacDailyNews opted to use as their headline the prediction even Sellers himself believes to be a stretch, boldly proclaiming “Apple to debut new Mac Pro at Macworld in January?”. In a move typical of Apple rumor sites, MacDailyNews opts for the more sensational and attention grabbing headline, regardless of the facts.

Ditto World of Apple. They actually manage to fit all of the baseless speculation in a single headline for the article, “New Mac Pros at Macworld, iMac, Mac Mini Nov. 10?” To be fair, they at least mention that Sellers “makes no mention of sources”.

Zolotech is possibly the worst offender, since they leave out even the mandatory “?” at the end of their headline, “New iMacs, Mac Mini November 10th, New Mac Pros at MacWorld Rumor”. Plus, they report the content of the opinion piece in a way that makes it indistinguishable from tangible news, offering no indication that the info isn’t solid.

Is that what we expect from Mac reporting? Scrambling for crumbs dropped by others in the same business? Obviously, we here at TAB also publish stories that deal in speculation and conjecture, but we follow-up, and we spend some time assessing the validity of the source. Sellers’ piece is a case-in-point. We emailed him immediately after he posted his piece, asking if he’d based his predictions on any source or credible information. His answer:

No, it’s simply my “best guess” based on the fact that I think Apple will update one or both of the lines before the holidays — and I think Nov. 10 is the last practical day to do it. So I’m just speculating.

Just speculating. Not that Sellers was wrong to publish his piece. It’s a perfectly valid opinion, and he is in a position to make a guess. The problem here is that the Apple blogosphere is so eager to take his opinion and make it news. We like rumors as much as the next site, but let’s base them on something more than nothing at all, shall we?

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  1. #1 Teq says:

    Appleinsider hasn’t been wrong so far with their roadmap of apple updates, therefore there is no reason to expect them to be wrong now.
    Maybe indeed instead of bashing the news sites, you should do some research and follow-up on the sources of the rumors.

  2. #2 Darrell Etherington says:

    @Teq I didn’t actually mention Appleinsider among the sites listed. There’s no reason to consider them a specific target here.

  3. #3 Josh Pigford says:

    @Teq: “you should do some research and follow-up on the sources of the rumors.”
    — Um, that’s exactly what Darrell did. He followed up with the source of this rumor and it turned out to be fabricated out of a “hunch”.

  4. #4 theapplefan1 says:

    I kind of agree with Josh-YOU should do some research.as for the imac idea, I doubt they are going to remove any port save the display port-they will definitely get the new one.maybe a price cut(just guessing)but otherwise I think itll be pretty much the same

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