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http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/12/27/apple.in.2005/

Apple: both a winner, loser in 2005

updated 04:00 pm EST, Tue December 27, 2005

 

Apple in 2005


Apple was dubbed both a winner and a loser in 2005 by PC World. Looking at the , Dan Tynan said the company announced innovative products all year: "Apple started the year with the Mac Mini, a pint-size $499 Macintosh sans monitor, and ended it with the long-awaited video-enabled IPod. In between, Apple announced it would start using Intel chips in its new line of Macs. The first Intel-based Macs should debut at around the same time as Windows Vista, which could lead to the first serious OS competition since, oh, 1989. All in all, a very good year in Apple-achia." The magazine also called Apple's iTunes a winner, offering kudos to Apple for clinging to the $1-per-song pricing, despite tremendous pressure from the labels. However, the column challenges the company--along with CEO Steve Jobs--for its efforts to control the press and for taking Mac rumors sites to court.

"For a company that turned rumor wrangling into an art form, Apple proved mighty touchy when rumor sites revealed information about the Mac Mini and other products weeks before the company's official announcements. Touchy enough, in fact, to sic their legal beagles upon them. In one case, a California judge ruled the sites could not protect the anonymity of their sources (that ruling is currently under appeal). Apparently, the sites broke St. Steven of Jobs' 10th Commandment: Thou shalt not release information without prior approval. The result? Apple still doesn't have the information it sought, but did get a ton of bad PR."


by MacNN Staff

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  1. climacs

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

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    12/27, 04:46pm | report spam | Reply |

    re: bad PR

    The result? Apple still doesn't have the information it sought, but did get a ton of bad PR."

    yeah, it really hurt iPod sales and stopped PC users from switching to Macs, didn't it?

    Face it, only us slashdot geeks give a s*** whether Apple sued someone for revealing trade secrets.

    I guess this is more of the bullshit "fake balance" we've come to expect from the media.

  1. Jonathan-Tanya

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    12/27, 04:53pm | report spam | Reply |

    up yours climacs

    Hey climacs you may not care about Mom, Apple Pie, God, and Country, but whether or not the teaming masses care about them or not, makes them no less important.

    Freedom is important, and freedom isn't the freedom to do what you are told in boot camp...no freedom is about many things, including expression, press, and trade.

    The Mac Mini is not a trade secret, its just a computer... but forcing journalist to reveal their sources is an attack on the first amendment, and Steve-O may be good at selling comptuers but he made a real arse of himself with his control freak behavior and his desire to squelch a good old fashioned 'scoop'.

  1. eldarkus

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    12/27, 05:24pm | report spam | Reply |

    no.. up yours!

    Trade Secret; A trade secret is a confidential practice, method, process, design, the "know-how" or other information used by a business to compete with other businesses.

    So the question is.. how does the mac mini NOT fall under this definiition of trade secret? Or any other product Apple, or anyone else makes?

    Do some reseach before posting, Jonathan-Tanya. It'll save me the trouble of proving u wrong.

  1. climacs

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    12/27, 06:01pm | report spam | Reply |

    re:up yours climacs

    take a valium, Jonathan. And have someone wash that sand out of your v*****.

  1. Buschman

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    12/27, 06:41pm | report spam | Reply |

    Not about trade secrets

    This lawsuit by Apple is not about stopping the rumor sites from publishing rumors. It is about finding out who leaked the information. Anyone who works for Apple has to sign a NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), and anyone who is an Apple Developer also has to sign the NDA. Therefore, anyone who had access to the Mac mini information (and thus leaked it) violated their NDA, which provides for penalties, etc.

    Apple wants to know the identity of that person, and the only way to get it to to force the rumor site(s) which published the information to reveal the source. The rumor sites are fighting the action because, if their sources cannot be protected, they will run out of stuff to publish. No one will dare violate their NDA w/o getting something in return, and rumor sites aren't likely to have a lot of money laying around to pay people for info on the next Apple product.

  1. debohun

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    12/27, 08:23pm | report spam | Reply |

    Not the Rumor Sites Prob.

    I'll be the first to admit that I don't know all the facts in this case, apparently no one, including Apple, does. However, based on press reports, I have to say it appears that Apple is behaving badly. If Apple has a contract with an employee or vendor and that person breaks the contract, Apple is perfectly within its rights to sue for breach. However, it is not the rumor site's responsiblity to enforce Apple's contracts for them, (We have a little amendment in our constitution about a wee matter called involuntary servitude regarding that.) It is not, and should not, be Think Secret's responsilbity to enforce Apple's contracts. One of the reasons for the protections afforded the press is for precisely the reason of protecting the people who provide the vital service of keeping an open society open from being prevailed upon by special interests. There are always other ways to obtain information, Apple is merely trying for the cheapest, easiest way, by, again, trying to get someone else to enforce its will--this time with the bill going to the taxpayers. They could just as easily hire their own sleuths and figure it out on their own, but they'd have to pay their own bills. Whatever happened to the idea that everyone, but most especially the wealthy and powerful, should carry their own way? BTW, at what point does what type of information stop being a Trade Secret? The liberal application of that term is exactly the type of thing that allows companies to intimidate employies into covering up suspect activities until you have a WorldCom or an Enron situation. The only information that should be eligible for coverage under non-disclosure agreements should be patentable, copywritable information, in other words, information with direct transactionable property rights attached, otherwise NDA can be used for all sorts of coverup actions. However, a rumor's just a rumor and a scope is just a scope--most likely neither is ownable information, so Apple should just be out of luck. The situation is most probably the results of poor competitance of Apple's HR and legal staff. Whomever sold Think Secret their scope was either going to the highest bidder with a lead or was simply talking out of scorn due to poor treatment. Maybe Apple should be a litte more generous--or treat people better--next time if it wants to keep secrets.

  1. Feathers

    Grizzled Veteran

    Joined: Oct 1999

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    12/27, 08:44pm | report spam | Reply |

    Open Society???

    Er...I'm deafened by the wailing of those standing up for free speech, the American way etc. Apple sues a few rumour sites, boo hoo! Where's the free speech, or better yet, the truth in a country where George Bush is President, Fox News, MSNBC and CNN claim to be news channels and the war in Iraq was supposed to be about W.M.D's? Get some f*cking perspective! P.S. - A Constitution is worthless where legislation such as "The Patriot Act" exists.

  1. bigpoppa206

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    12/27, 09:22pm | report spam | Reply |

    PLEASE Everyone...

    Let's keep this on-topic. If you want to argue politics, that really needs to go somewhere else.

  1. MacAddct1984

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    12/27, 11:16pm | report spam | Reply |

    One thing we can agree on

    I think we can all agree that when iTunes is written as ITunes, an angel loses its wings and falls to its death.

  1. kw99

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    Joined: Nov 2001

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    12/28, 12:51am | report spam | Reply |

    If the only negative

    that the author can come up with is Apple suing ThinkSecret.com, I'd say Apple had a mighty good year. Clearly a winner (not a loser)...

    As mentioned previously, the only people who even know about (let alone care about) such things are the folks who read Apple rumor web sites.

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