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As the popularity of Apple and the Macintosh grow, the frenzy for Apple news and rumors is now at a 'Beatlemania' state. One of the long-respected websites for Apple rumors has been the site Think Secret. This website has been leaking rumors of upcoming Apple products for years. Think Secret made news in early 2005 after being sued by Apple to disclose its sources. At the time, the website accurately predicted the Mac Mini and iPod Shuffle would be announced.
Since that time, the popularity of the website has increased but as each Apple event passes, Think Secret is getting more of their speculations wrong. Perhaps the glory days for Think Secret are behind them and they are no longer reliable as a source for upcoming Apple products.
At the time of the iPod Shuffle announcement, they also said that a music breakout box code-named the Asteroid was going to be released. Subsequent news from Think Secret said the product has been delayed. Over a year later nothing has materialized and this product, if it ever existed, doesn't seem like it's ever going to see the light of day.
Over the past six months there has been a never-ending rumor about a new iPod. Think Secret has dubbed this the 'True video iPod'. They have said on numerous website postings that the current fifth generation iPod is only a stepping stone to a full screen iPod and all speculation about video capabilities still have yet to be seen. This iPod was to have a full touchscreen and a virtual click wheel. Many Apple events have come and gone and yet we still have no indication that this new iPod is on its way out of Cupertino. MacWorld 2006 was when rumors of this iPod were at its highest. Think Secret said that the unit was ready to be announced but then only a couple days before the event, a holdup was announced. Think Secret stated that Apple was having difficulty obtaining deals for movies to put onto the iTunes Music Store. Because of the lack of content, Apple would need to delay the device. Through the months many artwork pictures have been released, none of which looks like anything official.
The final major miss of the website is the recent news that Apple had fired the entire team that built the powerful picture editing program Aperture. According to the posting on April 27, 2006 Think Secret said "Apple recently asked the engineering team behind its Aperture photo editing and management software to leave, Think Secret has learned. The move, which resulted in the departure of several engineers while others were transferred to different projects inside Apple, raises questions about the future of Aperture, Apple's most heavily criticized and bug-ridden pro software release in recent years."
This made major news in the Apple news circles because this program has had problems but was a major application that Apple was pushing and is a much-needed professional program for the Intel platform. Speculation abound, people wondered if Apple was going to axe the program or even aquire a new program and make it a new Aperture. On May 4, 2006 Apple released an update to Aperture and then also addressed the issue of its demise.
"The reports of Apple reducing their commitment to Aperture are totally false," Kirk Paulsen, Apple's Senior Director Pro Applications Marketing, told Macworld. "In fact, we've got more people working on Aperture right now than ever before." With this new information, it seems to be strike 3 for major issues that Think Secret is reporting on.
With an ongoing iPod rumor that just doesn't want to die (March 2 posting shows yet another 'video iPod / movie studio' article) and the contradiction directly from Apple about Aperture, it seems that Think Secret may be past its time. The website has easy access for anyone on the inside to contact them with information, but perhaps people are using this to feed disinformation or worse, Think Secret is just making up its own content.
Whatever the case may be, the recent track record for the site shows that getting information from Apple before they release something is near-to-impossible and everything you see written has to be taken with a grain of salt. For me, I'm not believing it until I hear Steve Jobs say it on stage.
