I'm not nearly as allergic to new product speculation as my good friends and colleagues John Farr (who has two stories currently posted on Applelinks dissing "Rumor" sites) and David Schultz of AppleLust, or John Norton of MacMilitia who denounces discussion of unreleased Apple hardware in his "iPalm, Pismo, and 17" iMacs: Stop the speculation!" article.

I understand the argument that new product rumors "hurt Apple," but I do not entirely agree with it, and IMHO that is really not my problem as a journalist and consumer advocate, although it may or may not be my problem as a Mac enthusiast. As I asserted in my recent Applelinks column, "Cheerleader or Critic?" there is a balance to be struck.

In one of his columns this morning, John Farr wrote about how as a teenager he used to gobble up information about upcoming new products from Detroit. I remember it well, having been a consummate car freak at that age and well beyond, and new product speculation remains a staple of the Automotive press, including such august and respected journals as Road & Track and Automobile. Are Thos. Bryant and David E. Davis Jr. (respective honchos of those two mags) irresponsible "rumormongers?" Perhaps rumormongering is partly in the eye of the beholder, but I think not in their case. If Ford is planning a new Mustang with a more powerful, less-thirsty engine that will sell at a cheaper price than the current model, and if I'm in the market for a Mustang, I want to know about it soonest possible, even if some of the details get skewed.

Some might argue that such speculation, which is rife in Automobile magazines, "hurts Ford (or G.M., Chrysler, Toyota, etc...)." However, the car companies continue to advertise heavily in the carmags, supply them with product (often pre-production) to test, and don't fly off the handle and stick in the wall every time one of them pays a photographer to sneak some spy photos of a new model. The car builders and the car mags have reached a mature and workable symbiosis that benefits both as well as car consumers. The computer industry and the computer press are at a less mature stage of relationship.

Returning to the issue of "rumors hurt Apple" for a moment, I am highly skeptical of that claim in general, although I'm sure that somebody can cite a particular instance where it holds water. In provisional counterpoint, I cite the example of the iBook, which was surely the most rumor-ridden hardware release in Apple's history (there were even whole Websites dedicated exclusively to "P1" rumors and speculation). Did all the rumor hoopla hurt iBook sales when it finally arrived? You can't prove a negative, but it surely doesn't seem so.

Which brings me to the issue of whether Apple's new "Pismo" professional PowerBook will be rolled out at MacWorld Expo Tokyo tomorrow. It's surely overdue. The current (or discontinued, if reports from several retail channels hold water) "Bronze" G3 'Book (Lombard) has been on the market with the same specifications since last May, an incredibly long run in computer model terms. It's a formidable piece of work -- my son bought one last month -- but it is definitely overdue for replacement.

Yesterday, Doug Landry of The PowerBook Zone stated flatly "In less than 48 hours, Apple's long-awaited successor to the 'Bronze' PowerBooks will be here. Pismo [is] to be introduced tomorrow night (U.S. time) at MacWorld Tokyo in a keynote presentation given by Apple CEO Steve Jobs."

Now, before somebody accuses Doug of just "playing the averages" here, having struck out predicting Pismo's rollout at MacWorld San Francisco, please note that Doug was one of very few PowerBook-oriented Web journalists who unequivocally predicted that Pismo would NOT show at San Francisco.

Doug maintains that Pismo will be marketed three different speed/price points: probably 400 MHz/450 MHz/500 MHz configurations ranging from approximately.$2,000 to $3,500.

On the other hand, Low End Mac's Dan Knight says that "Simply stated, Apple does not seem interested in shipping any computer that can compete with the Power Mac G4/450. Thus, if Pismo is going to be available at 450 or 500 MHz, it won't be released until the G4 hits 500 MHz. And there's no point releasing Pismo at 400 MHz as long as there's an inventory of Lombards and it offers no increase in speed."

That, says Dan, is speculation, not rumormongering. Dan's article is actually more about the "rumors" controversy than about hardware prognostication. "I don't claim to know this," he writes, "But I look at the rumors, the trends, and the known facts -- and this seems to be the most reasonable explanation. Rumors claim a basis in reality; speculation works from trends."

Responding to John Norton's entreaty for the Macintosh community to just stop the speculation, Dan writes: "Sorry, John, but that isn't going to happen. The world has to know that change is constant. The computer buying public must be reminded that computers get faster and grow in capacity regularly so they won't buy believing that their computer will remain state of the art.

"The rumor sites may be bad for Apple in some ways," he continues. "especially since they claim to be based in reality when predicting Pismo in January. That probably did reduce PowerBook sales slightly, although anyone who needs a PowerBook should get one when they need it -- not wait for a newer model that has no known release date."

That's what I advised my son to do, although we also discussed the imminent Pismo introduction at great length. Give people a bit of credit for common sense.

As for Pismo, we'll just have to wait a few hours, at least for now.

Charles W. Moore

.

February 03, 2012

I'm not nearly as allergic to new product speculation as my good friends and colleagues John Farr (who has two stories currently posted on Applelinks dissing "Rumor" sites) and David Schultz of AppleLust, or John Norton of MacMilitia who denounces discussion of unreleased Apple hardware in his "iPalm, Pismo, and 17" iMacs: Stop the speculation!" article.

I understand the argument that new product rumors "hurt Apple," but I do not entirely agree with it, and IMHO that is really not my problem as a journalist and consumer advocate, although it may or may not be my problem as a Mac enthusiast. As I asserted in my recent Applelinks column, "Cheerleader or Critic?" there is a balance to be struck.

In one of his columns this morning, John Farr wrote about how as a teenager he used to gobble up information about upcoming new products from Detroit. I remember it well, having been a consummate car freak at that age and well beyond, and new product speculation remains a staple of the Automotive press, including such august and respected journals as Road & Track and Automobile. Are Thos. Bryant and David E. Davis Jr. (respective honchos of those two mags) irresponsible "rumormongers?" Perhaps rumormongering is partly in the eye of the beholder, but I think not in their case. If Ford is planning a new Mustang with a more powerful, less-thirsty engine that will sell at a cheaper price than the current model, and if I'm in the market for a Mustang, I want to know about it soonest possible, even if some of the details get skewed.

Some might argue that such speculation, which is rife in Automobile magazines, "hurts Ford (or G.M., Chrysler, Toyota, etc...)." However, the car companies continue to advertise heavily in the carmags, supply them with product (often pre-production) to test, and don't fly off the handle and stick in the wall every time one of them pays a photographer to sneak some spy photos of a new model. The car builders and the car mags have reached a mature and workable symbiosis that benefits both as well as car consumers. The computer industry and the computer press are at a less mature stage of relationship.

Returning to the issue of "rumors hurt Apple" for a moment, I am highly skeptical of that claim in general, although I'm sure that somebody can cite a particular instance where it holds water. In provisional counterpoint, I cite the example of the iBook, which was surely the most rumor-ridden hardware release in Apple's history (there were even whole Websites dedicated exclusively to "P1" rumors and speculation). Did all the rumor hoopla hurt iBook sales when it finally arrived? You can't prove a negative, but it surely doesn't seem so.

Which brings me to the issue of whether Apple's new "Pismo" professional PowerBook will be rolled out at MacWorld Expo Tokyo tomorrow. It's surely overdue. The current (or discontinued, if reports from several retail channels hold water) "Bronze" G3 'Book (Lombard) has been on the market with the same specifications since last May, an incredibly long run in computer model terms. It's a formidable piece of work -- my son bought one last month -- but it is definitely overdue for replacement.

Yesterday, Doug Landry of The PowerBook Zone stated flatly "In less than 48 hours, Apple's long-awaited successor to the 'Bronze' PowerBooks will be here. Pismo [is] to be introduced tomorrow night (U.S. time) at MacWorld Tokyo in a keynote presentation given by Apple CEO Steve Jobs."

Now, before somebody accuses Doug of just "playing the averages" here, having struck out predicting Pismo's rollout at MacWorld San Francisco, please note that Doug was one of very few PowerBook-oriented Web journalists who unequivocally predicted that Pismo would NOT show at San Francisco.

Doug maintains that Pismo will be marketed three different speed/price points: probably 400 MHz/450 MHz/500 MHz configurations ranging from approximately.$2,000 to $3,500.

On the other hand, Low End Mac's Dan Knight says that "Simply stated, Apple does not seem interested in shipping any computer that can compete with the Power Mac G4/450. Thus, if Pismo is going to be available at 450 or 500 MHz, it won't be released until the G4 hits 500 MHz. And there's no point releasing Pismo at 400 MHz as long as there's an inventory of Lombards and it offers no increase in speed."

That, says Dan, is speculation, not rumormongering. Dan's article is actually more about the "rumors" controversy than about hardware prognostication. "I don't claim to know this," he writes, "But I look at the rumors, the trends, and the known facts -- and this seems to be the most reasonable explanation. Rumors claim a basis in reality; speculation works from trends."

Responding to John Norton's entreaty for the Macintosh community to just stop the speculation, Dan writes: "Sorry, John, but that isn't going to happen. The world has to know that change is constant. The computer buying public must be reminded that computers get faster and grow in capacity regularly so they won't buy believing that their computer will remain state of the art.

"The rumor sites may be bad for Apple in some ways," he continues. "especially since they claim to be based in reality when predicting Pismo in January. That probably did reduce PowerBook sales slightly, although anyone who needs a PowerBook should get one when they need it -- not wait for a newer model that has no known release date."

That's what I advised my son to do, although we also discussed the imminent Pismo introduction at great length. Give people a bit of credit for common sense.

As for Pismo, we'll just have to wait a few hours, at least for now.

Charles W. Moore

.

February 03, 2012