Fake Apple Keynote “Leaked” on Wikipedia
Erick Schonfeld
37 comments »
What is Macworld without rampant speculation? This year, though, someone is going the extra mile and is using Wikipedia to spread what looks to be a fake outline for the Stevenote tomorrow. Many blogs and media are biting (see here and here), including people who should know better (Steve Rubel).
At first glance, the notes seem plausible. Nothing too earth-shattering: a thin new MacBook, a 16GB iPhone, YouTube downloads on iTunes, and a preview of the iPhone software development kit. But it has a few fatal flaws: No mention of iTunes movie rentals, Microsoft Office 2008, more DRM-free music partners, or the much hoped-for Beatles iPod. (At least one of these highly-anticipated announcements has to be true). Not to mention that the self-correcting mechanisms of Wikipedia are already at work debunking the premise behind the notes. “This is TOTAL BULL,” reads one comment.
Still, it is a well put-together piece of speculation and plays on people’s trust of Wikipedia to spread rumor. My favorite part is the purported SDK news. According to these “notes” Steve Jobs will be spending a lot of time on it. The details: iPhone apps will be sold for $6.99 and widgets for $2.99, with 70 percent of revenues going to the developer (or they can be free). Apple will only accept source code, not executables, to protect the device. And example iPhone apps that Jobs is supposed to demo include an RSS feed reader (that would be nice), a Last.fm music app, and Twitter for the iPhone (this part may be true). Here is the relevant excerpt:
iPhone/iPod Touch SDK
- Apps and Widgets
- Using Cocoa with Objective-C
- Developers submit programs as source code, not executable
- Specify iPhone or both iPhone/Touch (certain features iPhone only)
- Set your own price: Apps $0-$6.99, Widgets $0-$2.99
- Users buy/download in iTunes Wi-Fi Store / iTunes Store (Mac/PC)
- Automatic updating wirelessly or docked- Demonstration of exporting from XCode 3 to iTunes Store
- Submits source code to Apple for validation (make sure that people aren’t abusing the system, prevent malware and viruses)
- If using microphone or GSM, iPhone only; otherwise, available for both iPhone and iPod Touch
- Apps can be free or up to $6.99; Widgets free or up to $2.99
- Developers recieve 70% of revenue for their products
- Licensed under Apple Mobile Software License
- Can download wirelessly from iTunes Wi-Fi Store or docked to computer from iTunes Store
- Demonstration of wirelessly downloading (and running) the app submitted earlier
- Apps and widgets can be rearranged on front screen; front screen scrolls to show all apps/widgets
- Resubmit updated versions of apps; when added to store, iPhone/Touch will ask you to update it next time you use it (or next time you dock the iPhone/Touch)
- Developers can get their hands on a beta version of the SDK tomorrow on ADC and start developing; final version due early February
- iTunes 7.6 and iPhone/iPod Touch Software update 1.3 allowing for Apps mid-FebruaryExample apps/widgets
Apps:
- iChat (coming with 1.3 update) (AIM, Jabber/Google Talk)
– Quick demonstration
- RSS Feed Reader (coming with 1.3 update) (read feeds online or off)
- One of our partners made something cool: Last.fm (scrobble tracks played on iPhone/touch wirelessly without syncing w/ computer)
Widgets:
- Dictionary (coming with 1.3 update) (quickly look up words, translate, use wikipedia)
– Quick demonstration
- Yellow/White Book (coming with 1.3 update) (search for contacts, add them to your address book directly from the app, will sync back with address book on your Mac/PC)
- Sports Ticker (coming with 1.3 update) (choose your sports and teams, get updates on their progress)
- Another partner: Twitter (update your Twitter on the fly, see your friends tweets)
- Try these out on the show floor today
Again, I say this is all bunk. But it does reflect in its own way what the Apple faithful want to hear. And hopefully, Jobs will shed some light on Apple’s iPhone SDK plans tomorrow.
Update: Turns out this was fake. Check out the real Stevenote here. Barely no mention of the iPhone SDK.
Oh give me a break, what in the hell would Apple want with that Twitter crap.
It’s Macworld NOT MacWorld.
Agreed.. i don’t understand the whole twitter rage.
Be quiet Brandon, you dope.
Wonder if it was posted by Fake Steve Jobs? That would really drive some traffic to Forbes …
The killer mistake is the ‘launch in Japan with DoCoMo’ - without realising that that would of course also mean 3G, since there ain’t no GSM in Japan.
If only this was true…think about it.
Too much hype. You reckon Apple could be behind this…..
I guess we’ll find out tomorrow
If it’s garbage then why has it been reprinted HERE? AGAIN?
OMG! you bloggerz can’t resist!
As long as Steve announces/releases the next iPhone software (1.1.3+) update, I’ll be very happy.
Side note, I hope that my large purchase of Apple stock this morning pans out.
Let’s see how many of them will be real
http://www.givemebeats.com
i dont really get the point of twitter. You can do the same thing on facebook, even myspace now. I never bothered with it
oops, I’ve been trapped, here http://pitsharing.com.
anyway we’ll know now in less than 24 hours!
Anyone know what updates are expected with iPhone 1.1.3?
The killer mistake is the ‘launch iphone in Japan with DoCoMo’ - without realising that that would of course also mean 3G, since there ain’t no GSM in Japan.
Go Wiki!
I’m going to edit the page to say that I’m giving the keynote.
My iPhone battery is going to hate me when they have iChat on there.
“Should have known better” is Steve Rubel’s biography in four words.
Steve Jobs will make his keynote entrance on a Jetpack??? This blog has a pretty convincing photo…
http://www.8bitocean.blogspot.com
The guy who claims to have written it apologizes here: http://dyo-ecksdee.com/2008/01/14/apologies/
“Long story short: I wrote it for a few friends of mine from MacHeist as a little joke. One of them, who I’ve identified, put it on Wikipedia, and it spread from there.
I’m sorry about the whole thing.”
I guess that the MacBook Touch thing is not meant to be announced this year… Will it ever be?
Apple fanboy boobs
Word has it that Jobs will wear a navy blue, mock turtleneck while giving the keynote. Not a black regular turtleneck as had been earlier predicted. And sandals. He’s wearing sandals, with toenails painted, because he lost a bet to a friend.
I can see something like this (strike twitter) happening at WWDC, but no way could this even possibly be construed as a Macworld keynote. Steve tends to avoid dorky developer stuff in January; thats more of a June kinda thing.
I just can’t wait til Steve announces the “kid sized” iPhone. My four year old really needs one.
Peter, the iPhone SDK is coming tomorrow. There is no way he is waiting till June to release that.
The part about Cocoa on the iPhone has some problems. For one, WTF are they doing with UIKit? Possibly, some runtime magic bridge. But then there’s the swiping API. Need to extend Cocoa to support it. But then, how do developers test it?
When Ev referred to “stevej” in his Twitter I think he meant him: http://twitter.com/stevej
And the new MacBook with a hard drive? That’s definitely wrong!
Gimme Airtunes via iphone.
Gimme (video) ichat on iphone.
Gimme builtin EDGE (or EVDO) capabilities on all airport cards.
i guess we’ll see tomorrow. for everyone who’s already trashing this you might just restrain yourself for a bit. remembered what happened to the ipod nano leaks that everyone blasted? it became true. im not saying that these speculations are true, but they could be. so stop yourself from getting too embarassed when this becomes true, okay? just my 2 cents.
Who cares? It was written on a Talk page. Talk pages are for discussing article content and as such are only read by Wikipedia editors. “plays on people’s trust of Wikipedia to spread rumor” - whatever trust Wikipedia’s articles have does not apply to its talk pages, which are very clearly marked as places where people post their opinions, not as sources of information.
If this had been added to the article and left there for more than a few hours (which it wouldn’t have been) it might be newsworthy. Or if it was a particularly good hoax, but it isn’t - the author clearly gets bored a quarter of the way through and gives the game away with repetition and stuff no professional would write.
“Many blogs and media are biting, including people who should know better.”
Like Erick Schonfeld and Techcrunch? It’s not very helpful to point fingers at others passing this rumor along as “should know better” if you then turn around and share it yourself.
I got an newsletter type email from Apple yesterday stating that Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is available now to preorder. So, that’s one of the ‘highly anticipated’ news confirmed.
All of this is becuz of my now infamous TechCrunch post on viral marketing. I have created a monster.