Super-secretive Apple has provided some of the best evidence yet that its long-rumored tablet is on the way. No, not by leaking photos or specs, but instead by threatening a website about soliciting said photos or specs. On Wednesday, Gawker Media's Valleywag blog announced its Apple Tablet Scavenger Hunt, which offers hefty …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections

This topic is closed for new posts.

Friday 15th January 2010 04:28 GMT Anonymous Coward

iHype

This is just part of Apple's marketing machine bellowing the coals in preparation of the launch. They knew full well their actions would feed the rumour mill and get more people talking about it, ensuring huge anticipation by the time it arrives - to a press frenzy. Expect any iSlate to be on the front page of the BBC news website and reported on the 6 and 9 O'Clock news.

Seriously... This is the main BBC News bulletin... Earthquake in Haiti, Obama follows Brown by imposing big taxes on banks, Teddy Pendergrass has died... and Apple, the computer company who have been making computers since the 70s, have made a computer. It looks like a big iPhone but is a proper computer instead, with high failure rates due to too many dum-dums crushing them.

Like iFlavor iFlav used to say before reaching his 50s, Don't believe the hype, fanBooooyyyy!

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/3301/igotlm0.jpg

3 0
Friday 15th January 2010 04:28 GMT Anonymous Coward

ouch!

A Zune gift card to an Apple mouth piece. That has got to hurt!

6 0
Friday 15th January 2010 04:28 GMT RW

Who was the first twit to aggravate themselves?

¿Was it perhaps Barbra Streisand who complained that the California coastline survey showed her house (never mind it was from an airplane quite some distance offshore)?

If she had shut up and said nothing, very few, if any, people would have even realized they could invade her precious privacy. But attempt to unleash the legal vampires, and all she did was publicize the very fact she wanted to suppress.

Just so in the present case.

When will they ever learn?

0 0
Friday 15th January 2010 05:40 GMT macbookprouser

Hate to be a pain, but...

Shouldn't a legitimate news organization understand the difference between "imply" and "infer?"

Just sayin'...They should have used the word "imply."

2 0
Friday 15th January 2010 05:40 GMT ratfox

Apple yanking the chain

I can imagine Steve Jobs getting on the stage...

"As many of you have guessed, Apple has been working in secret on a brand new project...

Today, here it is... the very first electric car made by Apple, the iCar!!"

Half the audience collapses in shock, and then he says that no, there's no tablet this year either... And the other half of the audience collapses.

1 0
1. Friday 15th January 2010 08:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Hehehe...
  
  Or;
  
  'Today, here it is, the very first electric car made by Apple, the i5'
  
  A revolution in transport history. Now if any of you have any questions, could you direct them to our project lead, Clive, come up here...
  
  Paris, touch sensitive.
  
  5 0
Friday 15th January 2010 08:12 GMT Bad Beaver

I say

it's getting interesting. Rumors fine and well, but as long as Apple states "no comment" I don't care. If they get on edge, even if it is just because they are fed up with stuff like this bounty, the entertainment value is far higher.

0 0
Friday 15th January 2010 10:16 GMT Anonymous Coward

So maybe some people missed a point...

Inciting people to attempt corporate espionage is at least civilly liable, if not criminal. Most assuredly a tablet isn't the only thing Apple is secretly trying to develop, and wouldn't it just be bad for their ability to surprise competitors if the new device they are going to present isn't a tablet but IS something quite revolutionary? Apple doesn't want Gawker to have people looking for a needle in the haystack just to have them end up finding the farmer's daughter. Imagine if some bounty had been offered for some device back in the early 2000s and someone going for that had managed to stumble upon Apple's long secret Intel machine running OS X?

Apple saying 'don't incite onerous behavior' doesn't prove there's a tablet, it just reinforces that Apple likes it's secrets and has plenty to concern itself with.

2 0
1. Friday 15th January 2010 10:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Corporate state
  
  "Imagine if some bounty had been offered for some device back in the early 2000s and someone going for that had managed to stumble upon Apple's long secret Intel machine running OS X?"
  
  Well, so what? Apple make a product based on another architecture - the only people likely to be really miffed at such "news" would be the people making the existing chipsets, and it's likely that they knew about it all along.
  
  Talking about stuff being "criminal" in a finger-waving kind of way, because some corporation doesn't want people to know about stuff - fairly superficial stuff, too, not exactly fundamental trade secrets - is just pandering to the criminalisation of everything to suit some corporate agenda. As you point out, there are civil remedies for this kind of thing, and the law should leave it at that.
  
  0 0
Friday 15th January 2010 10:33 GMT Anonymous Coward

Boink

Again I say who cares! It's just another Apple product that I'll eventually get around to buying. It's just not that exciting imho....

0 0
Friday 15th January 2010 10:41 GMT Anonymous Coward

Cant wait

Cant wait until apple get into the sex toys market.... iKok or iTuube afterall the fanbois say that apple provide the best user experience going......

paris, as she is very hands on in the user experience departments!

0 0
1. Friday 15th January 2010 11:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Naming
  
  Surely a sex toy from Apple would be called iAlone?
  
  0 0
2. Friday 15th January 2010 15:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Hmmmmm
  
  The Apple iBrator - for an iWatering experience.
  
  0 0
Friday 15th January 2010 10:51 GMT Anonymous Coward

I wonder if the biggest losers here will be Apple's lawyers

if they have indeed blown the gaff on the tablet, Steveo will be Displeased. In the spirit of fair play, I hope Valleywag give them a consolation cash reward...

0 0
Friday 15th January 2010 10:52 GMT Anonymous Coward

Evidence?

So this action by Apple "has provided some of the best evidence yet that its long-rumoured tablet is on the way"?

Tell that to Think Secret (if it was still going that is). Apple didn't release any Garageband breakout box (codename Asteroid) that the rumour site reported - but did take legal action about the reports, which led to Think Secret's demise.

Also, after Jobs returned to the Apple fold, Apple employees became far more tight-lipped and took leaks/rumour sites far more seriously (Think Secret being an example) - so I don't think Apple is going to take kindly with a site offering cash rewards for information about a future product, regardless whether the product is real or just the result of fevered speculation.

Not wishing to be a pedant (but I will), in the sentence, ‘The wording of that warning seems to infer that there is, indeed, "an unannounced and highly confidential Apple product" that Apple wishes to protect,’ it would have been more appropriate to use ‘imply’ instead of ‘infer.’ The person making the message implies, the receiver infers.

2 0
Friday 15th January 2010 11:33 GMT Robert Carnegie

Always

When isn't there "an unannounced and highly confidential Apple product"? This proves nothing.

I'm not an Apple user at the moment, but good luck to them. If they do make a tablet PC, I expect it to be more than just a computer with a touchscreen and no keyboard (which you cen supply with USB, Bluethooth, etc), I expect astonishing software to go with it. A camera that reads manual sign language, say.

1 0
Friday 15th January 2010 15:48 GMT Joe 3

Anonymous Cowards

There seems to be a very high proportion of Anonymous Cowards commenting on this article... are you all Members of the Cult of Steve? Or perhaps undercover Friends of Ballmer?

0 0
Friday 15th January 2010 16:40 GMT Anonymous Coward

Apple is now obliged to announce a tablet

Even if Apple didn't have a tablet in the works, by virtue of share price rise on the rumors but no denial by the company, they have no practical choice. Tablet rumors are largely what propelled the share price since summer. If no tablet is announced, the stock price will swiftly plummet.

Or they could announce a new phone with pull-out wings that when fully deployed provide a haptic screen measuring 10 inches.

0 0
Saturday 16th January 2010 01:57 GMT JaitcH

Bloody lawyers!

The Pirate Bay had the best policy in dealing with the legal freeloaders who write 'threatening' letters.

Ignore them and publish the threatening letters. (Some lawyers even try to copyright court pleadings!)

0 0