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Apple Businesses

Rumors Removed At Apple's Request 304

Arthropoid writes "Looks like Apple's legal department has been busy of late. After forcing Ad Critic to take down all its Apple commercials, they have struck again, forcing Mac rumors site Mac OS Rumors to take down two stories. Both stories reported on details of Apple's next generation computer and case, supposedly a cube like box (still translucent) with a third party PCI chassis attachable through a connection on the motherboard." I traded email with Ryan Meader at MOSR about this.

(Full disclosure: I own some Apple stock and have been a fan of the company since my Apple][+; also, MOSR's parent company did ads for Slashdot several years ago.)

Apple apparently claimed to MOSR that - among other things - they had "proprietary and statutory rights" that were violated by the stories that ran on the site. Sounds fishy to me. Unless they can prove an NDA was violated (and Meader says none was), I can't see how they have a case. You can't copyright a fact.

But I'm not a lawyer. If any lawyers would like to comment on this, feel free.

Effectively what this means is that large legal fees would have to be paid unless the rumor site removed the rumors. Win or lose, nobody likes to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit. It just costs too much to defend so the rumors get pulled. Just a fact of life on today's web.

To be sure, another large factor in MOSR's decision is that they are supporters of Apple and of the Macintosh community. Meader says their website "was originally created to help Apple through the rough times of '95-'97 ... because the Mac community is so protective of its center, we don't feel that it's wise nor beneficial to fight Apple on this."

But, as Meader goes on to say, "The real matter at issue here is that Apple wants to be able to do what they want without taking responsibility for failures, schedule slides, or unpopular plans, until they're already carried through. ...Apple figures that rumor sites are inevitable, so individually they have no value. They can be tossed away when they become an inconvenience, and others will spring up to continue giving them free, no-strings hype."

The end result is that rumor sites are allowed to exist ... as long as they don't get too uppity and cause too much trouble for the bottom line.

But here's an interesting angle. MOSR publishes its stories under the OpenContent License (which goes by the odd acronym "OPL"). If anyone happened to snag a copy of the offending rumors before they were removed, then according to the terms of this license,

"You may copy and distribute exact replicas of the OpenContent (OC) as you receive it, in any medium,"

as long as you reproduce the copyright and warranty-disclaimer, and a few other usual things. Oh, and as long as you're willing to get sued by Apple, whose lawyers presumably will welcome the chance to make themselves, once again, useful.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Rumors Removed At Apple's Request

Comments Filter:
  • But the list of negatives is very, very long: inability to update their software with modern necessities (PMT, VM that's not broken, etc).

    Why in the world do you insist that 70s timesharing technologies are "modern necesseties"? The Macintosh changed the world in 1984, demonstrating that what was then decade-old mini and mainframe software techniques were not necessary. Nice to have if you can afford the hardware, sure. But not "modern", and not "necessities".

    Backstabbing the developers.

    To what do you refer? Apple has introduced a number of technologies that it later found it didn't have the resources to support. I'm thinking OpenDoc here; it never quite worked right, but they left it in the system for a release or two, and then made it an optional install. Is that backstabbing?

    To answer your question, folks use Macintosh because it's the right tool for their jobs.

  • Because, while the majority of people who read slashdot are techs, a computer is a tool to get things done. A good tool accomplishes something in the shortest, most efficient, most elegant way. Ignore the specifics of the arguments, individual features etc.. what it comes down to is my parents completely and totaly know what's going on with a Mac, with a PC, I end up getting a phone call. That and they are the only computers that might conceviably be called "sexy". -- yes, I have an imac, it sits on top of the e450 ;)
  • I really like Macs because they are pretty! That's whats really important in a computer. Im glad there is only one mouse button, it would be too confusing to have 2 buttons.
    but seriously, i started on a mac in school and then used windows 9x and only recently have i returned to the mac, and it was a very easy return. Thanks to Apple i hate Microsoft Works with a passion (an oxymoron if ever there was one), and i deride it as possibly the shittiest program i have ever had the misfortune to use. Clarisworks is/was a great program particularly the graphics package from 6 years ago is still better than anything that comes with MSoffice. They have had a text to speech program for years, a great way to annoy your teacher.
    Dont underestimate the importance of ease of use, Microsoft spends a fortune on it and the Mac is way easier to use. There are more people who dont understand computers than there are who do, if you make the learning curve to steep then they will balk, and give up completely. We dont really want that do we?

    Besides Apple is not Microsoft, and that's gotta count for something. ;)
    I was at a talk by an Apple exec, and he talked about the wonderful GUI innovations made by Apple i was on the verge of shouting Xerox. Microsoft and Apple have spent decades refining Xerox PARC research from decades ago, and finally Apple is turning to BSD (one small step back, one big step forward IMAO)

    I do find the hardware annoying, there first thing you should do is get rid of the "ufo" single button mouse. As someone who scanvenges parts from older machines and messes about a bit with the insides its annoying, but i suppose that is what PPC linux is for, and Mac users allegedly get a longer lifespan out of their hardware than windows users.

    I am seriously considering buying a Mac especially since OSX with its BSD foundation should let me take a crowbar to the OS, and get more control. But for now i cant quite kick the MS habit, Linux has steep learning curve (your not going to win over any mac fans if you dont provide a point and click alternative, i dont care how stupid/lazy you may think i am but CLI is not for everyone, although i do appreciate the choice), and BeOS is as close as i get to a Mac on x86 hardware for now.

    We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them'

    - STEVE JOBS on the jellybean-licious Mac OS X
    ...watch out for the brown "Application Quit" dialogs

  • Ok this editor is not being nice to me, so let's try Plain old text, ok?

    http://normad.webhostme.com/jihad.asp
  • by Danse ( 1026 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @01:31PM (#944867)

    Why should MOSR be held accountable for someone else breaking an NDA? Shouldn't Apple have to prove that an NDA was violated? Either way, once the info is out, it's out. Maybe Apple can sue the person who broke the NDA, but that should be the extent of their legal rights.

  • ---
    So instead of Apple losing money, many Mac Cloners went out of business? One of them, Power Computing, got bought out by Apple after the clone licenses got revoked. If it was Microsoft, that would be anti-competitive behavior.
    ---

    The difference is, Apple doesn't have 90% of the desktop OS market. They have less than 10%, and at the time it was far less than it is even now.

    Cloners developed something with a strong dependency on Apple-supplied software, hardware, and R&D. They signed a limited contract to make Mac clones using these resources, which ran out. Apple opted out of renewing. That's it.

    Now, you can shout 'monopoly!' over and over as much as you'd like, but the fact remains that Apple can't be a monopoly when there are so many alternative segments within the same market for them to explore. Yeah, Apple is a monopoly in Apple-supplied operating systems and hardware, but that's kind of obvious for any company isn't it?

    The point is, Mac cloners could have changed platforms and licensed Windows and still have a chance to survive. A Wintel cloner is pretty much stuck with their platform, or they're going to get screwed in the market.

    They have property that they protect, perhaps at the detriment/bankruptcy of competitors. But that alone does not make a monopoly.

    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • Microsoft doesn't have USB support in WinNT SP 4 that this March-2000 Dell OptiPlex GX1 runs. So what exactly do you mean by "support"?
  • I don't know where to start, so I'll just rant:

    Let's start with Apple and MOSR -- you can find more interesting rumors by sitting in coffee shops in Cupertino and SF. Because that's where the Apple guys are sitting.

    But, like, fat lot of good it'd do you. Fact is, Apple's teams don't know what the fuck they're working on (read Scully's 500 days, people!). The iBook guys thought it'd weigh in under 4 lbs... or at least some of them did; others thought it had a touch screen; ...

    Not even Apple's managers know what Apple is going to produce. Again, go read Scully.

    And then the lawyers: they send out the cease&desists to anyone who gets attention, 'cause, well, they don't have a clue what Apple is working on, but they wanna get paid, and have to find SOMEONE to send cease&desists to.

    And MOSR again: well, like being "Mac-centered" means caving in to Apple. Anyway, they're just following their own interest, and this is a good publicity stunt op -- if they told Apple's lawyers to bugger off, they'd bugger off since they don't have a case, but there'd be no story...

    And that's view today from Saw Mill Road...
  • I really don't understand why many people love Apple. ... But the list of negatives is very, very long: inability to update their software with modern necessities (PMT, VM that's not broken, etc). Backstabbing the developers. Backstabbing the clone manufacturers. Incredible arrogance. Price gouging ... Look-and-feel lawsuits. Closed hardware. Closed software. Closed minds.

    Clue me in. Why does Apple get all this loyalty? The products are good in a lot of ways, but they're not that good (be honest!). Is it the home of people who just like to be different from the mainstream, and that's the attraction?

    I understand your concerns, but I think the confusion lies in the fact that you seem to be forming most of your opinion of Apple based on political/industry actions rather than what the end result is for the person who uses the products.

    The basic issue is that Windows and Linux are basically computer-centric operating systems. You are forced to adapt to the computer. The reason Apple has built such loyalty over the years is that it realizes that most computer users are human beings. They like to accomplish tasks quickly, and then move on. 85% of the world's population doesn't care what a kernel is or why one might want to upgrade it. This is particularly true for artists, who want to focus on the art, not the technology. So many people have told me that they like the Mac because it doesn't get in the way of the creative process. This is absolutely crucial to the concept of why Apple is popular with normal people, and creative types. And then there are those that are technically brilliant, but still think computers should be easy and fun to use. These people often become Mac developers.

    Additionally, being primarily visual creatures, humans appreciate asethically pleasing elements, such as a well-polished, attractive user interface, and creative approaches to industrial design. This is, of course, more attractive to designers and such. These people don't want to become the next ESR. They just want to accomplish tasks, and possibly play some games. The vast majority of computer owners' lives do not revolve around their computers. There's only a very small segment of the world that cares what database a site is running.

    And I know the slashdot masses reject such ideas as blasphemy or just flat out "wrong," which is extremely frustrating. Slashdot was, at some point, a forum for alternative points of ideas to be appreciated. Yet there are still people roaming these forums that truely believe that a person doesn't "deserve" a computer unless they can use text configuration files or write their own code.

    Also, as one last note -- the only PowerBook line that ever had signficant problems was the 5300, and that was more than 3 years ago. Aside from that, Apple customers have experienced considerably less hardware issues than the average person with a wintel laptop.

    - Scott


    ------
    Scott Stevenson
  • by dynamitehack ( 207215 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @12:47PM (#944880)
    The "DISCLOSURE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED" language at the end of the email makes the following point for those that are still missing it:
    The concept that anyone can by law control what you or I do with information we acquire is at best ridiculous and at worst dangerous. The emperor has no clothes; but we have been conditioned to think they are there. Let's all wake up and stop being blinded by the lawyers and the folkes telling us how crazy it is not to have intellectual property laws.

    Frankly if I or anyone discovers your secrets, that should be your problem, not one for the taxpayer funded courts.
  • The only jihad I see here seems to come from you. Why do you feel this need to come up with lengthy posts trying to discredit Mac users?

    Perhaps if you can discredit the technology someone will listen to you. Not everyone feels that they are defined by the people who use their computing platform.


    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • by SoupIsGood Food ( 1179 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @01:41PM (#944882)
    "Love the Mac, Hate Apple" has long been the Macintosh afficionado's creedo. Apple is a short-sighted, mean spirited and callow corporation that's about as despicable as they come. Their current attitude towards independant resellers and users, especially in terms of tech support and making good on defective equipment, is nothing short of "slimy".

    Unfortunately, Apple also has the habit of producing revolutionary products that are so much more than the sum of their creator. So, even tho they killed HyperCard, the Newton, OpenDoc and a myriad of other interesting and worthy technologies, even though their legal department is staffed by the Barney Fife brigade and can zero in the big guns on their own foot with uncanny accuracy, people are still loyal.

    This is why there are so many Apple/Macintosh rumors sites: Mac users, especially professionals, cannot trust Apple to behave in a predictable, professional manner. Unfortunately, their products are of the caliber where we need to make an effort to get around the limitations of the company to use the best damn computing tools on the planet.

    SoupIsGood Food
  • Hasn't anyone else gotten it that MOSR is full of shit? $10 says that he made up the story (or got bad info... on Ars, one guy said he sent in info he'd made up and it got posted... on THIS story. True, I can't necessarily believe him, but he's more trustworthy than MOSR) and then had "Apple Legal" (read, himself) "pull" the story.

    Oh my god!! Look! It's says "Apple Legal" has smacked down on MOSR! Oh Joy of the Heavens! It's true! It's true! Sweet Merciful Crap! They got something right!

    ...bullshit is all...



    The Happy Blues Man
  • First, I want to say that Linux/BSD are my primary platforms. I'm writing this from a Debian machine (admittedly under Netscape but Lynx, pine and trn are second nature to me). I have no difficulty in recompiling kernels or tweaking makefiles. This being said, I use Macs for a lot of graphics work. They are extremely easy to use and configure.
    Case in point: when I needed to attach a Zip drive I only had to plug it in and start the computer and the drive was automatically detected. This may seem an idiotic reason to someone at home with mke2fs and vi'ing fstab, but is a godsend for those artsy, graphics types who are not technical.
    Second, though Windows is catching up swiftly, the Mac has excellent color calibration and media features. Again, this seems a minor detail to gimp users, but it's a huge cost saver when it comes time to proofing ($2 a proof on a dye-sub can add up quickly). Linux does not yet have a comparable technology.
    Also, multiple monitor support has been in Macs for a long time. It's difficult to appreciate this unless you're using it for production work, but it's one of those features that I cannot easily do without. Yes, Linux can support this with multiple X servers or Metro-X and Windows now support this with some tweaking but it is no where NEAR as supported as the Mac. Believe me, I've looked at the alternatives.
    As for other reasons, I don't think innovation and swimming against the current should be so lightly dismissed. USB and Firewire are really cool technologies. Macs, though they didn't pioneer USB, were one of the first systems to deploy it widely. Wireless ethernet is also very cool and very useful. Again, though not the originators, Apple has made it affordable.
    I hate to sound like I'm defending Apple, because they clearly have done some BAD THINGS. But you seem to be holding them to a higher standard than any other company.
  • by First Person ( 51018 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @12:53PM (#944890)

    RM 101, I enjoyed your comments very much. Here's my take on the issue.

    I try to practice what I preach. I work in the hi-tech industry and admire innovative companies. When I buy products, I try to pick the ones which demonstrate forward progress. I believe that Apple has helped push the industry forward, unlike another company (which shall remain nameless) which has proved more of an anchor.

    Apple managed to migrate all their users from the Motorola 68000 to PowerPC architecture with minimal pain. That took balls. Apple is planning to migrate their OS from a custom kernal to a BSD based product. For a consumer oriented company, that definitely takes balls. Apple has firmly embraced SCSI, USB, FireWire, etc. Apple made ethernet standard equipment and is doing the same with wireless connectivity [apple.com]. Apple is shipping video editing software [apple.com] with some iMacs. Apple believes in leading edge industrial design [apple.com]. On both the hardware and software side, Apple has a consistent history of innovation which has helped stimulate the industry.

  • Right, or the people who read MOSR. Or did you forget who the content was for?

  • by Shadow Knight ( 18694 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @12:53PM (#944900) Homepage

    So what if the kernel is at least partially BSD. If I can't get a command-line, recompile the kernel, or even add some odd piece of hardware, Mac OS will get no more attention from me than it has since I left the printing industry.

    Well, according to Apple and other sources, the kernel is 100% BSD+mach, you can recompile, you do get a command line (if you want it... optional install), etc. The IO driver structure (called IOKit) is open source, so you can add all the hardware you want, as long as you can write a driver for it :)


    Supreme Lord High Commander of the Interstellar Task Force for the Eradication of Stupidity

  • A company should not be able to simply call a legal task force and bully someone into "not saying something about them". All things said Apple doesn't have anything to worry about from this sort of rumor mill - they should only attack truly false dogmatic claims that slander the company as a whole. I see where you are coming from, and you raise valid points. From my viewpoint I may want something to happen - but it doesn't mean that it has to. And nobody has the right to make someone do as they please with the fear of a legal dept. Regardless of how it is, this is not the way it is ment to be.
  • That's not true. I got underwear from Apple during WWDC 1997

    Yeah, okay, but that was when Amelio was CEO... he never had any style.... although he did have enough taste to wear boxers...

  • You can see each and every mac model, along with its strengths and weaknesses here. [lowendmac.com]

    Or you can speculate about vaguely remembered rumors of recalls. Up to you. :)

  • <RANT>

    First Apple kills off the clone manufacturers, stranding me with a great Power Computing PowerCenter Pro that I hope never dies. Now my only Mac choice if my well-constructed clone goes belly-up is to buy one of those cheesy, plastic, Fisher Price looking Apple computers. That's smart. You allow people to make clones, then you continue to make your own hardware to compete with them. Then when you're lossing your ass because the clone people are making machines 10x better than yours, you kill the whole situation. BRILLIANT! You guys are fucking geniuses!

    Then you take the Newton people, spin them off, and before they can continue to make something even better than the great MessagePad 2000, you reel them back in and kill them off too! Now I'm stuck with a MessagePad 2000 with no where to move up to. "Oh no, a good idea! It must be stopped!"

    I don't own a TV, so the only place that I am going to get to see Apple's ads are at Adcritic.com. Hello?! That's free advertising. You don't have to pay to run it on TV. People will click on your ads and view your sales pitch without you incurring any further expenses. I can hear the brainiac in marketing on this one: "What? People are showing our ads and we aren't having to pay for them to do so? That's just not right. They must be stopped. Stop them at once!"

    Hey Apple. Why don't you graph this: y=(-x)^2+3. Put 1970s on the left side and Present day on the right. Look familiar? It should. See where you are going? Yep, that line keeps going on down.

    What a bunch of fucking geniuses.

    </RANT>

    --
    FattMattP (Mac user, budding Linux convert)

  • by crazyj ( 145672 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @01:01PM (#944927)
    It is no secret that Steve Jobs likes to take potshots at the rumor sites, whther they are true or not. I remember in one speech he said something ot the effect of "If you read the rumors sites you would think that [G4 computers I think] will be available in a few months. It is available today form the Apple Store."

    This made me wonder if Apple doesn't "leak" some info just to throw off the rumor-hounds and to make product announcements more spectacular. Showmanship? You bet, but it helps sell computers.

    MOSR is "known" for being inaccurate in many cases, but that is part of being in the "rumors" business. Lately MOSR has been more and more careful with readers explaining that rumors are rumors and no one should base any sort of decisions on them until (if) they become fact.

    There are those who aren't fans of MOSR [mosr.net] though.

    BTW, MacSlash [macslash.com] has been carrying this story since 7:22 this morning.

    MacSlash: News for Mac Geeks [macslash.com]

  • by Master Bait ( 115103 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @01:01PM (#944928) Homepage Journal
    By posting the Article, you are improperly disclosing Apple's trade secrets.

    Aha! So Apple is trying to pull an Adobe Systems-style censor threat. The first line of defense for one of these is to reply to the email saying you refuse the validy of the email and and demand a certified letter of Apple's demand. By the time you get the paper either by messenger or fedex, the story has spread as much as possible. Anybody could compose an email posing as a lawyer, demanding article removal and threating legal action.


    blessings,

  • Yes he does, if the only alternative is to discredit its users. You know, those people who get work done day in and day out using the OS in question?

    If you'll discard your 'anonymous coward' label, I'd be more than happy to have a serious debate on these issues (in particular, how your first two claims are completely false, and the last is subjective in that I've been 'reliably' running OS9 on Powerbook with few issues).

    But really, I imagine it's much easier to practice 'hit and run' zealotry, saving you the burden of responding to my original complaint - that dissing a platform's entire userbase is about as low as you can get in the zealotry scale.

    Jihad, indeed.

    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • ...now if that ain't funny...
  • by / ( 33804 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @01:02PM (#944939)
    Apple has argued that the information published on the website was only available to people who had signed an NDA, and that therefore regardless of how MOSR got the rumor, it must have been in violation of an NDA. Apple isn't pursuing an action against MOSR per se, but against whichever person leaked the info to MOSR.
  • I remember when the OS was renamed OS8, a lot of people assumed it was some black voodoo to kill off the cloners using their own contracts. Then I used OS8, and realized that it probably deserved the moniker (it was no Copland, sure, but it wasn't a 7.X release either).

    Since then, Apple has often changed their numbering schemes during development to reflect where they felt it belonged - even without the need to renegotiate contracts with cloners.

    Now, where I *will* agree with you is where you say the cloners (I'm specifically thinking of Power Computing here) were kicking Apple's ass. All things equal, PCC deserved to kick their ass in the market because (at the time) Apple was spewing forth some pretty shitty hardware. However, the cloners wouldn't be anything without the MacOS, and it was Apple's to take away.

    I do disagree about the platform, unless you mean it's not a successful platform unless it features more than one vendor. While the average geek would love to piece together their own boxen - and this is what the clones promised - it doesn't matter a bit for the average consumer, graphic artist, web designer, or educational institution. For Apple's core audience, the Mac is quite a viable platform.

    That said, I want cloning back. Even if I choose to buy Apple hardware, as long as cloners can expand the MacOS marketshare, everyone wins. Unfortunately that's not what was happening before...


    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Here it is

    Here they are in all their questionable glory. (Edited to raise signal-to-noise)

    Saturday, July 8

    PowerMac "Cube" Update

    As soon as our "Apple's 'Cube' Desktop Mac Confirmed" article (see below) was published yesterday, [snip]

    Without further ado, the latest details culled from the past day's reports:

    Several sources with long and distinguished track records now concur that this design is indeed the planned enclosure for "Mystic," the multiprocessor PowerMac G4 based on the UMA-2 motherboard chipset. The unconfirmed codename for the Cube enclosure is "Rubicon." Accurate measurements of the exact size of the Cube are still not available. However, thanks to a much clearer side-by-side comparison of the Cube and an iMac, a reasonable estimate would be 12 inches to a side -- slightly smaller than the front face of an iMac with its Elevator down. Although easy to overlook on first glance, the "front" side does contain a standard DVD-ROM drive. The outer door is a tremendous improvement over the hackish solution used in the last two generations of translucent Minitower PowerMacs; instead of swinging down and out of the way on a hinge, it moves directly in and out as part of a one-piece media tray. The bottom of the Cube is rubberized, removing the need for "feet" while keeping the machine firmly in place. When opened via a small latch on the side, the Cube is lit from within to allow easy viewing of the internals in low light. To allow for easy portage without disturbing the Cube's serene lines, handles are stowed in unobtrusive slots on the same side as the Ports pane.

    Beyond the internal DVD drive, there are no provisions for additional internal removable drives; Apple apparently plans to rely on the external USB and Firewire busses for these.

    [Apple Legal threat snippage]

    Friday, July 7

    Apple's "Cube" desktop Mac confirmed

    After months of obscure reports and unreliable sources, two contacts with extremely solid track records have reported sightings of one of Apple's best-kept secrets -- its next-generation Desktop enclosure and the changes to its product line that will come with it.

    While one of these new reports claims intently that the machine -- a near-perfect cube about 2/3 the size of a modern-day iMac -- will be a complete replacement for today's iMac line-up, the other is not so sure....and the remaining body of evidence is none too clear on whether this enclosure will be applied to the PowerMac or iMac spaces exclusively, or in both.

    Setting that important detail aside for the moment, there is much exciting news about this new Cube that is of much greater reliability:

    [UPDATED] Approximately 14 inches to a side. Clear polycarbonate plastics similar to today's Macs offer views of the machine's innards, while opaque colored panels sport a large Apple logo and provide a sleek look. Although multiprocessor G4 applications would likely require more powerful cooling, prototypes are fanless. Cooling is provided by numerous large vents on the top and bottom of the enclosure, allowing heat to naturally rise upward and out of the cube. All six faces of the cube are featureless, aside from the power cable and an almost-invisible ports panel on the "back," which handles USB, Firewire, Audio I/O, Ethernet, and the built-in Modem's phone jack. A small tab on one of the "sides" allows for that side to be opened for access to the machine's internals. The entire package, including motherboard and all components, weighs approximately ten pounds.

    There are significant signs that this may be the long-rumored monitorless iMac; for example, the prototype sources have reported on does not appear to have external ports to accept PCI expansion cards. However, there does appear to be enough internal room for them if the external ports were added.

    A related but as yet unconfirmed rumor states that Apple is moving away from including PCI slots by default in PowerMacs, instead wiring the Universal Motherboard Architecture's PCI controller to a small connector which would support an external PCI enclosure with any number of slots. Note that this would be much less expensive than a full-blown PCI Expansion Chassis, which connects a single internal PCI slot to any number of add-on slots via a costly PCI bridge chip and associated hardware. This scheme would merely move PCI expansion outside the default PowerMac enclosure to allow for more innovative small-footprint designs as well as support more than three PCI slots for those who need them.

    For now, all but the details of the Cube enclosure itself are to be considered highly speculative. We will be watching developments in
    this story very closely -- if you believe you may be able to clarify matters, drop us a line!

    Whew! There we have it.

    Screed

    [This message has been edited by sCreeD (edited 07-09-2000).]

    Whew, there you have it. !screed
  • Isn't this about an NDA? If I had some brilliant idea--say, to implement auto-canceling switches in turn-signal activation controls--and I hired some mechanic to design a prototype, I might reasonably have him sign an NDA.

    If, later, the Edsel Rumors Circular published an article alleging that "a certain car company is currently working on a self-canceling turn signal", I expect I could contact ERC and say to them "look, that information was secret, and the only people who knew about it were bound by law and mutual consent to keep it secret, so you really shouldn't have gotten hold of it. We'd like you to please cancel circulation of the article."

    And if ERC was a supporter of a "certain car company", they'd probably do it out of regard for me (as the owner|manager|duly-appointed legal counsel of said company).

    Not everything is necessarily a free-speech issue. Nor is Apple building an Edsel with self-canceling turn signals. That's just a rumor.

  • by TheInternet ( 35082 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @01:06PM (#944948) Homepage Journal
    I'm a little unclear on why some people seem to think that if information exists anywhere in the world, it should immediately and infinitely be the property of all citizens of the internet. Apple is working on various prototypes for next generation case designs. Where is it written that everybody who has a web browser has the right to get information on these prototypes?

    Specifically, why is it that we are so concerned about individual privacy concerns, but nobody cares about the privacy concerns of organizations? Why is it that Slashdot policitcal correctness sates that Bob has a right to privacy, but not Bob's company?

    I can see how the people have a right information about, say, their government, as it does ultimately belong to them. But Apple's not a government. Sure, there are plenty of people with Apple stock, and those people do deserve to know what's going on, and vote on various directions of the company, but you can't give secret information to that group of people without giving it to everyone.

    Additionally, let us not forget that these rumor sites sell banner ads. That is, in some cases (probably not all), rumors are posted at least in part for personal gain, at Apple's expense. Think what you will of highly-valued companies (such as the one that owns Slashdot), but the individuals that work at Apple, such as the industrial designers, are passionate, driven people. They deserve some credit. There are few things more frustrating for an artist than a work being shown before it is finished.

    I would also point out that Apple frequently gets more attention for their products if they are unexpected. There's nothing unusual or devious about this. There's a natural human appreciation for the elements of surprise.

    - Scott


    ------
    Scott Stevenson
  • the stuff about the legal threat has been snipped
    ----------
    Saturday, July 8

    PowerMac "Cube" Update

    As soon as our "Apple's 'Cube' Desktop Mac Confirmed" article (see below) was published yesterday, [snipped legal threat info]

    Without further ado, the latest details culled from the past day's reports:

    Several sources with long and distinguished track records now concur that this design is indeed the planned enclosure for "Mystic," the multiprocessor PowerMac G4 based on the UMA-2 motherboard chipset. The unconfirmed codename for the Cube enclosure is "Rubicon." Accurate measurements of the exact size of the Cube are still not available. However, thanks to a much clearer side-by-side comparison of the Cube and an iMac, a reasonable estimate would be 12 inches to a side -- slightly smaller than the front face of an iMac with its Elevator down. Although easy to overlook on first glance, the "front" side does contain a standard DVD-ROM drive. The outer door is a tremendous improvement over the hackish solution used in the last two generations of translucent Minitower PowerMacs; instead of swinging down and out of the way on a hinge, it moves directly in and out as part of a one-piece media tray. The bottom of the Cube is rubberized, removing the need for "feet" while keeping the machine firmly in place. When opened via a small latch on the side, the Cube is lit from within to allow easy viewing of the internals in low light. To allow for easy portage without disturbing the Cube's serene lines, handles are stowed in unobtrusive slots on the same side as the Ports pane. Beyond the internal DVD drive, there are no provisions for additional internal removable drives; Apple apparently plans to rely on the external USB and Firewire busses for these.
    ----------
  • by Anomalous Canard ( 137695 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @01:09PM (#944952)
    20 minutes on a platform you had never used before? That's not too bad.

    When one sits down at a new piece of hardware/OS it takes a while to find your way around. Especially when you have new concepts like "unmounting a floppy" to figure out.

    Unless you've redefined "intuitive" to mean "Exactly like WIndows".

    Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
  • I have to agree with you here. Some (quite a few) years ago I attended a seminar given by Star Micronix to introduce their new Gemini 10 printer. A representative from Star proudly announced that they had "stolen" a number of employees from Epson, and because of this they knew what Epson had up it's sleeve for the next couple of years.

    Star pulled a coup by producing a printer with a sleek, sexy design (for a printer, anyway).
    Epson was too far into their development cycle to make any substantial changes, so by the time they released their new model months later, it looked like shit in comparison.

    The relatively unheard-of Star made deep inroads into the then hot printer market. - It pays to play your cards close to your chest sometimes.
  • by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @11:41AM (#944975)
    "Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated . . . And will be prosecuted with a lead foot and a gleeful smile."
    ---
    seumas.com
  • It's the new trend in business (especially high tech business), your customer is your enemy.

    I don't see how Apple taking legal action against a rumor site is a demonstration of this theory. Apple's is primarily trying to keep information private from its competitors. Your theory only makes sense to me if you count the handful of people who run MOSR as the "users."

    - Scott

    ------
    Scott Stevenson
  • by Golias ( 176380 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @11:41AM (#944977)
    The Apple lawyers wrote a lot of scarry letters to rumor sites over the 17" iMac "photos" last year. The rumor sites reacted by saying "ah ha! We must be on to something for them to be so mad! It must be true! We have a scoop! We are important!"

    Then the next Mac expo came and went, and it turned out that the rumor was all BS.

    This is probably the same thing happening here. Apple has proven to be a master of misinformation and misdirection in order to make sure that their product announcements will be more suspense filled. It's all Barnum-like showmanship on the part of Steve Jobs. After the expo, the lawyer letters will be forgotten about again.

    Of course, the fact that there is no real story here will not prevent Mac OS Rumors from playing themselves up as martyrs of the free press cause... anything to get a few more web hits.

  • Heh. Now Slashdot can frame a letter from Apple's lawyers on the wall right next to the one from Microsoft =)
    Christopher A. Bohn
  • by Danse ( 1026 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @01:15PM (#944989)

    There is NOTHING, REPEAT, NOTHING in copyright law that says that anyone must protect their copyright, or lose the right to enforce it. The can selectively enforce it all they want. The requirement you're talking about ONLY APPLIES TO TRADEMARKS. I see probably 10 people make this mistake in their responses to any copyright-related article on /., and just about every time they get corrected by someone. It's amazing that there are so many people out there with this misconception.

  • I can say that Apple is making a 500-foot robot with left over MAG. NeXt case parts. It shoots fire, talks and can fly!! It dose not mean it is true. Maybe some one hit too close to home on this one a simple not true or no comment would other wise do. I like the cube thing. I hope they do it.
  • by NetCurl ( 54699 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @11:44AM (#945001)
    That isn't true. They don't want shit getting out to investors early, they don't want their ideas stolen, they don't want their intellectual property violated. Maybe they are being too careful and coming off as big-brother, but they have to be. Look at all those iMac knock-offs. Don't you think some companies would love to be in-bed with the guys who are thinking up the case designs at Apple? If eMachines could just announce a product that Apple was about to release, who would appear to have gotten there first? Even if eMachines had nothing built?


    I work for a large networking/communications companies (one of the big three in the US) and we are pretty strict about this stuff too. You leave and aren't careful, and they pad lock your door, investigate, and call lawyers.

  • Aren't rumors some sort of protected speech? If not, then why hasn't every radio station, television station and magazine and news paper publisher been shut down by now?

    Unsubstantiated lies suggested to be fact with the intent to mislead, decieve and defame is libel. Rumor is... well, it's nothing. "Hey, so and so might decide to possible do this or that".

    Doesn't sound like it has a foot to stand on.
    ---
    seumas.com

  • Without knowing the specifics of Apples complaint, it sounds like a classic slap suit designed to quash free speach. Depends what state MSOR is in, but if they are in one with anti-slap suit laws, they may have good recourse. Of course this is completely invalid argument if Apple has evidence of violation of NDA or similar agreements.

  • This seems rather ass-backwards to me; Metallica is suing their fans, and now Apple is doing something rather similar? Apple has only recently gotten back on their feet, thanks in a large part to the dedication of the Apple user community. It just seems wrong to me to turn around and bash that community in the face.

    That would be like Debian turning around, claiming copyright to all the GPL software they support, and then trying to slap the FSF with a lawsuit...

  • Blockquoth the poster:
    Now, Copyright is expressly in the constitution, and the First Amendment was a later addition. Which has precedence? (Trick question)
    Neither "has precedence". The First Amendment is also "expressly" part of the Constitution. As soon as an amendment jumps through the final hoop, it becomes a fully-equivalent part of the Constitution. If the two are in direct conflict, then it's likely the Supreme Court would side with the amendment (as opposed to earlier stuff it contradicts), as it supposedly expresses the nation's current understanding of the judicial and political system.

    But rather than opening that can of worms, the Court would almost certainly massage the case so that only one part of the Constitution applied.

  • "from the can't-get-more-alliteration-than-that-sorry dept."

    Yes, there _could_ be more alliteration than that... if the story was about RAMBUS. :-)

  • This is really not intended to be flamebait, although I'm sure many people will interpret it that way. Oh well, let the Karma fall where it may.

    I really don't understand why many people love Apple. Granted, in the past they have come up with many innovations, the greatest of which was popularizing (note the word) the GUI. Give them credit where credit is due.

    But the list of negatives is very, very long: inability to update their software with modern necessities (PMT, VM that's not broken, etc). Backstabbing the developers. Backstabbing the clone manufacturers. Incredible arrogance. Price gouging. Bad hardware (powerbooks have had a lot of quality problems, several brain-damaged printer models). Look-and-feel lawsuits. Closed hardware. Closed software. Closed minds.

    Microsoft never dreamed of the anti-competition, monopolistic practices that Apple has implemented. The only difference is that Apple has been incompetent at becoming a monopoly. Can you imagine the world we would have if Apple had won?

    Clue me in. Why does Apple get all this loyalty? The products are good in a lot of ways, but they're not that good (be honest!). Is it the home of people who just like to be different from the mainstream, and that's the attraction?


    --

  • Yes, exactly. The photos being referred to were of the C2 or "Kihei" iMacs, a major revision which took place in October of last year, at a special Apple event. A week or so prior to the event, Apple promo images were leaked to Macnews.de. AppleInsider and Mac OS Rumors briefly posted images, after Apple filed an injunction against Macnews.de. Soon afterward, AI and MOSR received notices from Apple legal. A week later, the iMac was released. Exactly as seen in the images which Apple demanded be removed. -Nick dePlume Publisher, Think Secret
  • maybe the rumour was cooler than the actual product and they didn't want to let everyone down when they announced it?
  • You missed my point.

    You complain that Apple puts form ahead of function, but then go on to over-look Apple's wonderfully designed (function) cases because they scratch (form) too easily. Based off of this, it seems that you find form more important that Apple.

    Now let's look at what I actually said:

    Apple is dedicated to the idea that form is more important than function, even if Apple is straining to provide function as well. For example, the latest cases with the four handles are easy to move around (four handles, yay) but they're far more about appearance. Too bad they scratch so pathetically easy.

    I give credit for how the case with the four handles is easy to move around (I didn't mention that the motherboard and PCI card frame fold out, which is keen too) but then said that the case design was far more about appearance than functionality. Then I said it was a shame they scratch so easy. What I'm saying here is that since they're primarily about appearance, it's a shame they scratch so easy, because Apple couldn't even get that right.

    You're so wound up in your defense of Apple that your reading comprehension skills are suffering. I agree, the new Apple cases are quite functional. I just think they're spending too much of the consumer's money (Granted, the consumer chooses where to spend it) on appearances, especially since the consumer is no longer able to purchase a clone which puts more emphasis on a quality product for a reasonable price.

  • i recently had to move ISA fax cards to PCI fax cards in the dell 4200. the sheer pain and aggravation of opening the case, adjusting the cards and then closing it up again drove me insane.

    now, my dad has a blue and white g3 and to open that and switch the hard drives was like a walk in park.

    apple contiunes to hold advantages over integrators like dell bacause of the innovations that they incorporate into their software and hardware.

    finally, on the software side, apple enforces their User Interface Guidelines because consistency is important to them as it should be. i develop my linux applications according to apple's guidelines.

    thanks goes to eazel and helixcode for seeing that linux sorely needs consistency.
  • But the difference here is that the Washington Post is a big newspaper with lots of money - they would laugh off Apple's threat to sue. And Apple would look really bad if they tried to stifle the press. On the other hand, who cares if some rumor site on the web is forced to pull back an article - except for some Slashdot readers? Life isn't fair and big companies sure as hell aren't.
  • I do disagree about the platform, unless you mean it's not a successful platform unless it features more than one vendor. While the average geek would love to piece together their own boxen - and this is what the clones promised - it doesn't matter a bit for the average consumer, graphic artist, web designer, or educational institution. For Apple's core audience, the Mac is quite a viable platform.

    That's a true statment on the face of it. If they won't assmble their own, they won't care that they can't assemble their own. But it shouldn't be true. If Macs were tinkertoy computers like the PC then the little mom and pop shop down the street could undercut existing prices. Then the big stores would have tolower prices at least a little to not look like they are totally gouging, or a lot to match prices. Venders would spring up that have a good idea on how to make part X cheaper even if they can't build part Y to save their lives. System cost falls again.

    PCs arn't cheap just because they have cloners. Look at portables, the no-can-do-it-yourself PC. Pretty costly, and an area where Apple is cost compettave too...

    Roughly the same argument goes with Open Source Software. Joe Accountant doesn't care that he can modify a program, but he should care that he can hire anyone to do it, not just the place he bought it from. In thery that drives prices down and quality up.

  • by Darchmare ( 5387 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @11:51AM (#945056)
    Someone posted the text of the rumors on an AppleInsider message board, which you can get at below (about halfway down):

    http://forum.appleinsider.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/00 4621-2.html

    ...I'd post them here myself, but I'd rather not incur the wrath of Apple's legal department.

    Frankly, I think they have the right to ask that they be taken down, but it'd really come down to the courts as to what actually happens.

    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I dont get the connection - so what if an NDA was broken? Its just a contract, if MacOsR didnt sign up in the first place, why should they care if someone else broke the contract?
  • I wrote this on AppleInsider's forums [appleinsider.com], and I'll write it again here: Apple's lawyers did not do this if they are even remotely intelligent, and here's why:

    MOSR is, to say the least, not highly regarded in the Mac community. Its stories generally turn out to be wrong, and it frequently retracts and modifies stories. As a result, very few people likely believed the MOSR articles. (Visit AppleInsider's Future Hardware forum to get a good feel for the average Mac user's feelings towards MOSR.)

    Now, with MOSR's reputation in mind, put yourself in Apple's lawyers' shoes. MOSR has just posted an article about a cube-shaped Macintosh computer. If the article is false, then of course you don't do a thing. But if it's true, you also wouldn't do a thing. By threatening legal action, you would be confirming the product's existence, at least at the R&D level. Apple's lawyers would have to be brighter than that.

    Then there's the whole issue of the fact that the lawyers have absolutely no legal ground whatsoever to stand on. MOSR is a rumors site. It is extremely unlikely that it obtained physical documentation of the computer's shape and specifications, especially when you take into account that MOSR was unsure whether the computer was an iMac or a PowerMac and that it changed its specifications at least twice, reducing the box from about 14" or 16" down to 12" at the last time I checked before the article was pulled. As such, I think I can say with confidence that they were not in copyright violation, and also that the information wasn't obtained by breaking an NDA. So Apple's lawyers would essentially be making an idle thread--something that could result in a countersuit yielding MOSR hundreds upon thousands of dollars.

    It just doesn't add up. Perhaps MOSR did, in fact, receive an email, and perhaps the email really did ask them to be quiet, but that email could not have come from Apple Legal.

  • ...the computers were only "not ready for prime time" because Xerox management didn't care about making consumer models. Everyone working there, down to the secretaries, had desktop computers with GUIs in the mid-'70s. There's a lot of overstatement on both sides about the relationship of the Mac UI to the Altos UI. The Mac definitely innovated, not just imitated, but at the same time it's disingenuous to imply that the PARC designers were just doodling in the dark until the Macintosh project came along. If Xerox's management had shown even the level of clue that Tandy's management did when Steve Leininger came to them with the TRS-80 (one of the only times "Tandy management" and "clue" could be used together), the computing landscape today might have been very, very different.
  • OK, answering my own questions, but this [geocities.com] contains all of the answers.
  • Can they legally hold us to making the above email confidential? I mean, shouldn't they have us aggree to that condition before sending us the message.
  • Oops. Remove those parentheses.
  • The point is, my clueless friend, that Epson got its ass bitten hard for a while. They may be strong now but they suffered then.

    Star is gone? Maybe from the consumer market, but they are far from gone [starmicronics.com].
  • by dschuetz ( 10924 ) <david&dasnet,org> on Monday July 10, 2000 @11:54AM (#945075)
    This is the first of the two pulled stories, as found on DejaNews (http://x57.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=6442993 79 [deja.com]). The second story, reportedly, was only up for a very short time and I couldn't find that one online, at least not this morning. Apple's "Cube" desktop Mac confirmed

    After months of obscure reports and unreliable sources, two contacts with extremely solid track records have reported sightings of one of Apple's best-kept secrets -- its next-generation Desktop enclosure and the changes to its product line that will come with it.

    While one of these new reports claims intently that the machine -- a near-perfect cube about 2/3 the size of a modern-day iMac -- will be a complete replacement for today's iMac line-up, the other is not so sure....and the remaining body of evidence is none too clear on whether this enclosure will be applied to the PowerMac or iMac spaces exclusively, or in both.

    Setting that important detail aside for the moment, there is much exciting news about this new Cube that is of much greater reliability:

    • [UPDATED] Approximately 14 inches to a side.
    • Clear polycarbonate plastics similar to today's Macs offer views of the machine's innards, while opaque colored panels sport a large Apple logo and provide a sleek look.
    • Although multiprocessor G4 applications would likely require more powerful cooling, prototypes are fanless. Cooling is provided by numerous large vents on the top and bottom of the enclosure, allowing heat to naturally rise upward and out of the cube.
    • All six faces of the cube are featureless, aside from the power cable and an almost-invisible ports panel on the "back," which handles USB, Firewire, Audio I/O, Ethernet, and the built-in Modem's phone jack.
    • A small tab on one of the "sides" allows for that side to be opened for access to the machine's internals.
    • The entire package, including motherboard and all components, weighs approximately ten pounds.

      There are significant signs that this may be the long-rumored monitorless iMac; for example, the prototype sources have reported on does not appear to have external ports to accept PCI expansion cards. However, there does appear to be enough internal room for them if the external ports were added.

      A related but as yet unconfirmed rumor states that Apple is moving away from including PCI slots by default in PowerMacs, instead wiring the Universal Motherboard Architecture's PCI controller to a small connector which would support an external PCI enclosure with any number of slots. Note that this would be much less expensive than a full-blown PCI Expansion Chassis, which connects a single internal PCI slot to any number of add-on slots via a costly PCI bridge chip and associated hardware. This scheme would merely move PCI expansion outside the default PowerMac enclosure to allow for more innovative small-footprint designs as well as support more than three PCI slots for those who need them.

      For now, all but the details of the Cube enclosure itself are to be considered highly speculative. We will be watching developments in this story very closely -- if you believe you may be able to clarify matters, drop us a line!

  • There ought to be rules about how companies can go after people if their trade secrets get leaked.

    I'm assuming that Apple considers their new computer designs to be trade secrets. If Apple didn't want the whole world to know, they should have kept tight security. If somehow the world found out what the new computers looked like, then that's tough cookies for Apple. They should be barred from trying to stuff the genie back into the bottle.

    A parallel is found in the auto industry. Automakers have to transport cars around to get them from the shops to the test tracks. A lot of those cars are very top secret models not meant for production for a couple years or more. Many people who work for magazines like "Car and Driver" try to get spy shots of the vehicles as they are being transported or tested. The engineers know this, so they stick on a lot of fake plastic bumps on the car to hide the true shape from the photographers. If by chance a picture is published, then the magazines won one, and the automakers lost one. Better luck for GM next time - they'll probably try to beef up security somehow.
  • That's a pretty ignorant statement to make. Apple followed a trend that consumers were looking for, and it really paid off. If you call that unimpressive, at least give it good business sense.

    The iMac is positioned well in price. At first, it doesn't look like it, until you see all the WinTel systems that have this:

    *:Monitor sold separatly

    That is the difference. Apple made a good-looking machine, with good features, and everything is included. I know that the majority of the people who post here probably don't even care what they wear to work, but 90% of the world does, and they like to have a CPU that is "cute" or fashionable.

    Third, Apple included a lot of features (Firewire, USB 64-128 RAM, 6-10 gig HD, good monitor) at a low enough price to grab people who aren't programming or high-end video editing on board. That is 99% of the computer using world.

    So from your point of view, Apple may not be impressive, but if you look at it from a business point of view, they blew the roof off. They had the number one selling line of CPUs for something like 2 years.

    At least give credit where it's due, and open up your closed mind.
  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @11:55AM (#945080)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • MS threatened me under NDA while I was testing Office 98 for Mac in beta. Every company does this. There are sites out there that get stuff pulled at MS's request.

    What about MS's fucking government trial where they force their product on other companies (Dell, Compaq) and threaten other (NetScape, Apple, RealNetworks). So what were you saying about MS being the angel in this one? Apple isn't being split in two by big-brother for their anti-competative practices.
  • and not an ongoing open source project, as some may like to think.

    Of course at HQ they're going to be a bit concerned when rumors (like the Disney/pixar/whateverelse merger) proliferate unchecked and never seem to die.

    I think the problem here isn't the fact that "rumor sites" exist, but instead, even after repeated denials by Apple, the rumors *STILL APPEAR* on the Net.

    This event sure as heck isn't the downfall of "rumor sites", because I can't see how a company could get something that is true pulled without a large backlash.

  • Apple has always had a love-hate relationship with rumor sites and mags. MacWeek owed its existence to the rumors it published, and Apple contributed with leaks and information (though this was in the pre-Jobs days, or is that post-Jobs?, at the very least, it was between Jobs).

    MOSR publishes nonsense almost every day, with no effort at qualification beyond, "we received two completely separate anonymous emails that dehydrated iMacs will be on sale in February! Stay tuned!" so its no surprise that Apple jumps on their case.

    Apple shouldn't legitimize the site by harassing them. A better strategy would be to just ignore them, and let them have their fun.

  • Yes, everybody at PARC had a GUI computer, and a networked one at that, but we are talking about a primative, pre-Lisa GUI, running on a workstation that was phenomenally expensive.

    Would it have evolved into a great system if the Xerox suits had got behind it? Probably. They had some of the smartest computer scientists in the world working for them.

    The fact remains that the Altos died in the cradle because it took somebody from outside Xerox to see the potential that the PHB's from within could not.

    In all fairness, Xerox was never really a computer company, and so it is easy to see the thinking behind the errors that management made. Stick to "core compentencies". They really only look dumb through the prism of how events unfolded after 1984.

  • It seems to me that Apple is cutting off it's nose to spite it's face in regard to the forced removal of Apple ads from AdCritic.

    Why?

    HELLO! FREE ADVERTISING! Adcritic.com is a haven of nothing but commercials. People go there to watch these commercials.

    Smack! PEOPLE GO THERE TO *WATCH* *COMMERCIALS!*

    "Hmmm, this website is hosting our advertising for free, and actually encouraging visitors to view ads for our product - with no expense to us, save the original development costs for the commercial. NO, THAT'S BAD. MAKE THEM PULL THE ADS."

    That's the most descriptive example of "Think Different" that I have ever seen.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • For some reason, in this country it's illegal to distribute trade secrets obtained in violation of NDAs (even not one's own), in spite of the 1st amendment. Just look at the mess with DeCSS and sites being sued who distribute the source code, even though they were not a party to any trade-secret violation. (Nevermind that it's debateable as to whether trade secrets were ever violated by anyone).
  • Fact, fiction, or otherwise the 1st amendment allows anyone - any business - anything to say whatever they damn well please. Corporate law dictates (as far as I know) that a business must gain written permission to use copyrighted material (content) if it is to be re/sold. I honestly do think that far too many businesses out there are abusing legal decisions in lieu of our constutional rights. The right to have free association is also at odds here because I as a consumer decide whether or not to listen to a rumors site - not another business for me.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10, 2000 @12:00PM (#945102)
    I have obtained the actual message. This is not a joke, this is what Apple mailed to Ryan.

    From cpyrt@apple.com Fri Jul 7 20:56:43 2000
    Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 17:28:28 -0700
    From: Copyright Admin. <cpyrt@apple.com>
    To: Ryan Meader <ryan@macosrumors.com>
    Subject: NOTICE OF INFRINGEMENT

    *Apple Confidential*
    -NOT FOR POSTING OR REDISTRIBUTION-

    Dear Ryan,

    Re: www.macosrumors.com

    It has been brought to our attention that you have posted an article on
    the above web site titled, 'Apple's "Cube" desktop Mac confirmed'
    (hereafter referred to as "the Article").

    By posting the Article, you are improperly disclosing Apple's trade
    secrets. Apple believes that the person(s) who disclosed the information
    in the Article to you violated their non-disclosure agreement with Apple.
    Consequently, Apple has never authorized the information to be disclosed
    or published and your continued display of the Article could result in
    your company being held for violating Apple's proprietary rights. Your
    continued dissemination and use of this information is in violation of
    Apple's statutory and other rights.

    We believe, in good faith, that the information posted is being used in a
    manner that is not authorized by Apple and that the information contained
    in this email is accurate. Therefore, Apple demands that you cease and
    desist from disseminating the Article posted at the referenced URL
    immediately, including any hyperlinks to other locations where the
    information or Article may be available from all web sites and servers
    under your control.

    Please immediately remove the Article and confirm in writing by Monday,
    July 10, 2000 that you have removed the Article from your web site.
    Apple reserves its right to seek immediate equitable and other relief,
    including damages claims, should you fail to remove this material.

    Thank your for your courtesy and immediate cooperation. I can be reached
    at (408) 974-9994 should you have any questions.

    Sincerely,
    Sue Runfola
    Apple Computer, Inc.
    Legal

    Sue Runfola
    Apple Legal
    Copyright Administration
    1 Infinite Loop, MS: 38-I
    Cupertino, CA 95014

    Phone: (408) 974-9994
    Email: copyright@apple.com
    Fax: (408) 974-5436

    THIS TRANSMISSION MAY BE PRIVILEGED AND MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL
    INFORMATION INTENDED ONLY FOR THE PERSON(S) NAMED ABOVE. ANY OTHER
    DISTRIBUTION, RE-TRANSMISSION, COPYING OR DISCLOSURE IS STRICTLY
    PROHIBITED. IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS TRANSMISSION IN ERROR, PLEASE
    NOTIFY ME IMMEDIATELY BY TELEPHONE OR RETURN E-MAIL, AND DELETE THIS
    FILE/MESSAGE FROM YOUR SYSTEM.
  • Interesting how folks like you always comment on that.... I've been at my current job for about 8 months (where I have a windoze machine), and have never used the floppy drive. Maybe Apple made a good choice by not making me pay for including one in my own G3? You assume that a radical decision is automatically a bad one.
  • How dare they protect their own product thats still in development from the public! How dare a company attempt to make money, what the fuck is wrong with them. Here all this time I thought they were out to make people happy and spread joy.

    Say you're working on a new product to compete with someone, would you mind if I leaked some technical details and pictures?
  • Per Jamie's original article: ...from the "can't-get-more-alliteration-than-that-sorry" dept.

    Apple Asks for Annullment of Advance Article

    BMOC Busts Balls of Broadsheets

    Cabalistic Computer Company Calls for cancellation of contraband communiques

    Developers deride dampening of disclosures

    ... etc. etc.
  • The hammer bounces off the screen, smacks the blond bimbo is the face, and millions of people realize that just because a computer smiles at you, that doesn't mean it is nice.
    --
  • I have a miror of the two articles; if you want the link, send a brief e-mail to slashdot@phroggy.com stating that you are not in any way affiliated with Apple.

    --

  • OH MY GOD! Dare you LINK to the RUMOR?

    Jack Valenti would have you arrested in a flash.

    (Although, you didn't really LINK to it, instead, you provided the URL....so I guess you can slide this time.)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • It's a fantastic hype cycle. Apple comes up with a neat-o thing-a-ma-bob. Rumour site sees it and posts a story. Apple's legal team gets on the phone and the story is taken down. The total viewing period for the story is, oh, 5 hours (just guessing). That's not nearly enough time for most interested parties (ie me) to see and read it, but long enough for the rest of the media to get a peek. The result? All the people who didn't see the story now have curiosity levels pusing the red line and are pacing the floor waiting for MacWorld to see what the fuss is about. This is a fantastic way for Apple to get the news out that something big is brewing in Cupertino, but you won't know about it until the The Day arrives. It's sorta like Christmas as a kid (for all of you brought up in a nominally Christian home that is...). You can see the wrapped presents. You know their size and shape but you gotta wait till The Day to find out what it is. The suspense is a killer. Personally, I wouldn't have it any other way.

    Oh yeah, and Apple never gives socks or underwear...

    As a side note, this tactic does not hurt MOSR in any way. In fact, it helps them. For last MacWorld Expo I was checking MOSR every hour for the 3 weeks leading up to The Day, just so I wouldn't miss that magic window of gossip. Talk about a way to boost hits/ad revenue!

  • But after using my iMac for a while I've realized how superior the finder is to Windows desktop.
    This is certainly true. I know a few hard-core, old-school Unix people that love the new Macs. And ease-of-use when it comes to opening up the case kicks the ass of everything else out there.
    But I don't think Apple's lawyer-lovin' actions should be excused just because of that.

    When Mac OSX rolls around even the geeks might find macintosh attractive.
    I've played with it. I liked the BSD core, until I kept having to reach for that mouse. My tendonitis is already making me "feel different," thanks. I don't need Apple's help there...

  • This is about NDAs and trade secret. Not libel. Please reread the article.
  • >IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS TRANSMISSION IN ERROR, PLEASE NOTIFY ME IMMEDIATELY BY TELEPHONE OR RETURN E-MAIL, AND DELETE THIS FILE/MESSAGE FROM YOUR SYSTEM.

    Oops - looks like some errant transmission! Looks like we better call her as soon as possible and let her know what happened :)

  • Over at http://www.mosr.net/ [mosr.net]
    They take Meader down a notch or two, especially when they call him on his BS posts.

    Pope

    Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
  • The ISDN modem died because serial ports went away... Though there are USB to Serial adapeters which could have saved your modem.

    Likewise SCSI dropped out as well, but for things like scanners, a USB to SCSI adapter could still save that as well.

    What Apple did was an incredibly gutsy move than only some of the PC market are trying to do, walk away from legacy connections. Apple did a great job at it, i don't know why you're complaining. Just leave the scanner attatched to the computer it was plugged into before, ore else buy one of those cheap USB scanners. It's not like you bought the computer thinking it would support your peripherals only to find it wouldn't.

    Regardless of all that, I can't fathom your stance of "i won't buy a new mac until OS X is out." Does that mean they won't be a "bully" once OS X arrives? Nor will OS X revive your ISDN modem or scanner. But you'll let them off the hook and buy their hardware once they produce the software you want? Makes no sense... and granted I'm an apple fan and i still can't figure out the logic....
  • by davidu ( 18 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @12:07PM (#945132) Homepage Journal
    http://www.cgchannel.com/cgelite/dimitrisladopoulo s/G5%20Server.jpg
    -Davidu
  • Actually, you can still GET the ads, you simply cannot get it anywhere else than Apple... I mean, go there, you can still view the ads, the movies come from Apple's servers...
  • by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @12:07PM (#945137)
    Who says Apple Legal actually did anything. Ryan has pulled publicity stunts like this in the past where Apple supposedly requested information about future products be pulled down and no such product actually ever materializes. I think this is just another MOSR publicity stunt to attempt to give them veracity.

    I used to read MOSR all the time, but I loose more and more respect for them everytime I hear about another one of Ryan's stunts. Mac rumors sites haven't had anything substantial since Jobs took the helm and clamped down on security. Since then, they've either shut down or started spewing nonsense. There are whole websites dedicated to debunking MOSR crap. They seem to have become inactive as the owners have gotten tired of pointing out the nonsense.

    My favorite is still the live, secret streaming video feed they supposedly got from deep inside Apple's R&D labs. Riiiight.
  • Thats like saying that expensive cars are not justified by a comfortable ride. Sure they can be expensive, but great software is well worth that. And whats this novice crap? Does its GUI mean that the MacOS is not an expert system?
  • by Golias ( 176380 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @01:19PM (#945149)
    Well, it seems that you have overstated Apple's negatives a little, and understated the positives, which may not be flame, but it not "Informative" either.

    Granted, in the past they have come up with many innovations, the greatest of which was popularizing (note the word) the GUI.

    They were the first to introduce an affordable computer with a usable GUI. The Xerox systems were demo-only, not-ready-for-prime-time, bare-bones setups on workstations that cost a fortune. Jobs bought the tech, hired away some of the programmers, merged them with the best and brightest from the Apple III team, and came out with... the Lisa. Then he tried again and got it right, with the Macintosh. It was a major design accomplishment. I'm not sure if it is their "greatest", though. Apple also produced the first fully-assembled personal computer, the Apple ][. That was pretty huge.

    inability to update their software with modern necessities (PMT, VM that's not broken, etc).

    Cooperative multitasking has its advantages, too, especially in the days before networking enterprises became so critical. I know it is blasphemy to say so in a Linux-centric forum, so I will stop there and point out that the beta of a fully pre-emptive multitasking OS is coming in about a month.

    To call Apple's VM "broken" is a trolling overstatement. It works fine on my G3, although I can get a slight performance boost by turning it off.

    powerbooks have had a lot of quality problems

    I've owned several Powerbooks and they all rocked. The only "quality problems" I can think of was when they shipped the 5300 with a new battery design that caused electrical fires. When the problem was discovered, they switched to a different battery, and everything was hunky dorey. Oh yea, and some of the early Duo keyboards kind of sucked.

    That's a pretty short list of quality problems, if you ask me. For pure quality (and ! for $), I would put the current Powerbook up against any Wintel notebook in the world. The lowly iBook also stacks up well against any sub-$1600 system on the market.

    Closed hardware. Closed software. Closed minds.

    Broad generalization. Incorrect Assumption. Utter nonsense.

    But enough nitpicking about your comments. Let me answer your question directly. "Why do I like Apple?"

    I don't. They are just another tech company out to get as much of my money as they can. Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison and the rest of the Apple board can kiss my a??.

    However, I like their computers because they are often the very best tool for the task I want to perform at any given moment. They are fast, solid, useful, and elegant. When I use one, it becomes obvious that they considered the user experience first, and then worked on creating it... unlike many other products out there that clearly started with a function, and then began to consider the task of how to allow a user to manipulate it. Their design philosophies have always impressed me, and the rest of the industry obviously feels the same way, because they are copied so often.

  • Nope. Mac OS Rumors is now based in New Hampshire. See, after Ryan started pissing people off by doing such things as not paying them (Why Jon Thompson, Karthik Arumugham, Slashdot, Evan Desjardins, John Stiteler, NiftyWerks, and myself are no longer associated with him), his "media empire" started bleeding red ink like a son of a bitch. He was getting behind on his colo fees. He couldn't afford the rent on his apartment anymore, so he moved to his family's second home in New Hampshire, which he inhabits rent-free with the rump that he calls his girlfriend.

    <ONTOPIC>But yeah, US-centrism is justified here.</ONTOPIC>

  • You're 100% right.

    Under a capitalist society, each manufacturer would be free to compete with Apple and decide what they wanted to do with their products.

    Know what? That's exactly how it happened. Apple chose not to provide/license their OS any longer, and the cloners didn't have anything to replace it with. They signed a contract that ran out, and Apple simply chose not to renegotiate.

    Some people may think this sucks. Hell, I was one of them (long live my PowerTower Pro, a clone). But this is perfectly legit in a capitalist society. For cloners to clone, they had to accept it on Apple's terms. It's Apple's OS after all, right?

    In hindsight, Apple was leaking cash like a sieve, and this may have helped them recover. Other companies signed contracts that put them in a position of relying on Apple, and Apple chose to feed itself rather than die (and guess what: if Apple went out of business, they'd have been dead in a year anyhow). Sad? Yes. Unethical? Maybe. But certainly within the realm of the capitalistic way of doing things.

    (and no, there are no anti-trust violations here - Apple is pretty far from being anything even close to being a monopoly. that's like saying panasonic has a monopoly in panasonic vcrs - true, but that's kind of inherant to the statement)

    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • by Snocone ( 158524 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @12:34PM (#945156) Homepage
    Oops - looks like some errant transmission! Looks like we better call her as soon as possible and let her know what happened :)

    I just did. Sure 'nuff, that number gets me the voice mail of Sue Runfola. Hmmm. If this is a fake, someone went to a fair bit of effort to get the background right!
  • They hurt current Apple sales, and they keep people from buying hardware now because something better may be just around the corner.

    This is the computer industry we're talking about. There is ALWAYS something better around the corner. That's why there are always jokes about how a computer is obsolete as soon as you buy it. Everybody knows that if they wait a few months, something better will be out there. Since there is always something better on the way, it doesn't really matter when you buy. You just buy when you need to buy.

  • I must really be missing something.

    What does a website have to do with NDA's? Why would the guy who runs MacOS sign an NDA with Apple?
    ---
    seumas.com

  • As great as BeOS is (and it is), it would not have kept Power Computing in business. Otherwise, Be would have taken PCC up on their offer almost immediately and we'd have Power Tower Pro G4s running BeOS R5 right now - or at least until Intel invested in Be.

    If you're remember, Power Computing came out with an Intel-based laptop and only shipped a few hundred before going out of business. It certainly wasn't because of product quality (I got to work on one, and it kicked ass for an Intel-based system), it was that there were too many competitors. If PCC went into the BeOS market, they would have found out that there is no BeOS market, and went out of business anyhow.

    Especially at that time, when BeOS was even less mature than it is now.

    I would have bought one though. :>


    - Jeff A. Campbell
    - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
  • Phone: (408) 974-9994

    Want to let Apple's legal department know what we think of them? That number connects you to a voicemail box.

    Want to make an anonymous phone call? Dial 1-800-555-TELL. When prompted, enter extension 746. Type in the number you want to call (408-974-9994), and it will anonymously connect you for free!

  • by P. Legba ( 172072 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @01:29PM (#945163)

    Clue me in. Why does Apple get all this loyalty? The products are good in a lot of ways, but they're not that good (be honest!). Is it the home of people who just like to be different from the mainstream, and that's the attraction?

    I'll tell you why I'm a Machead.

    My first computer was a TeleVideo TS803 which ran CP/M 2.2. I tinkered and toyed with that thing to no end, but the only thing I ever really got done was typing up papers in WordStar. I reassembled the OS, made patches, got dangerously close to learning Z80 assembly language and anguished over my inability to get software in my disk format (one of about 75 at the time). I finally got it working as a smart terminal, dialing into Clemson University's VAX Ultrix machine to use email and Usenet. Never did get it to function as a BBS...

    When it came time to buy a new machine, I made the decision to go with the star-crossed Mac IIvx for one simple reason: It just worked. I was planning on going into a graphics/design/publishing-oriented field, and I had had experience with Macs doing the literary magazine at school. The user experience with the Mac was so superior to anything available from the Windoze side (3.1?), it was only natural. I had had plenty of experience with Ultrix, emacs and all that, and I still appreciate its power; but in reality, the software to do what I want to do is simply not there (still).

    So maybe I'm a contrarian at heart, but there remain practical reasons why I've recently purchased my fifth Mac (an iMac DV SE). Obviously it isn't the ease of upgrading, the stability of the OS or anything of that nature. It's the fact that my Macs have become extensions of my thought processes. The software system feels natural. It stays out of my way and helps me at the same time instead of asking me one too many times if I'm sure that's what I want to do, or allowing me to hose my system when I've been awake too long trying to hold my eyes open long enough to finish a project.

    Apple has long been a pioneer perfecting this systematic user experience. I don't begrudge them their protection of their intellectual property because I watched Microsoft build a world-dominating monster largely on the ideas which emerged from Apple R&D. It's as someone else said...suppose eMachines had announced their product ahead of the introduction of the iMac...the source of the innovative industrial design would have been in question. Apple, like NeXT had, has industrial design as a top priority, and any leaks that threaten their edge in this area of emerging importance should be plugged and fast.

    No, Apple hasn't always been run well. Neither has it always been run by the same people. Under a more mature Jobs, Apple has fought back from the edge of oblivion with a focus on bringing computing out of the server closet, so to speak, and putting it in the hands of "the rest of us." The rest of us no longer want to tinker with hardware or recompile our OS (even if some of us know how)...we just want to put the system to work as a tool in the construction of our cultural future.

    As for loyalty, few machines are apt to be described in such anthropomorphic terms. My Macs always have been loyal, so to speak. They're something other than computers, as I said...they're extensions of my thought processes. I value that, in spite of their limitations...my own limitations are more troubling.

    P.

  • Then exactly why is Apple demanding that websites take down pages?

    Apple's being a bully it seems to me. Mac OS Rumors would probably kick Apple's ass in court, but that takes money. Rather than fight, they fold, because fighting would cost too much. When companies get abusive, it's time for someone bigger than them to stomp hard. That means a legal restraint.

  • by fritter ( 27792 ) on Monday July 10, 2000 @12:37PM (#945166)
    I continue to buy Macs for a couple of reasons. First off (not that this is neccesarily an "advantage" :), the problems everyone constantly repeats ad nauseum on the MacOS - bad VM, bad multitasking, no protected memory - aren't nearly as bad as they're made out to be. I use Windows 2000 at one of my jobs, and run 98, RedHat, and OpenBSD on a few boxen at home, and haven't really been blown away by any of this in real-world usage between systems. The MacOS has gotten decent enough at working around its limitations that only rarely do processes not play nice with each other, hog memory, etc. The only exception to this is that it bugs me when I can't launch a new program while starting Photoshop. :) But other than that, MacOS "feels" as modern as Win2K et al in day to day use.

    On top of that, when I use any Mac app, I can intuitively go to "Edit->Preferences" to change the behavior of the program. On my PCs, sometimes it's in "Tools->Options", sometimes "Edit->Whatever", sometimes the File menu, and so on and so forth. I really do find the interface much more consistent and smooth when using my Mac. Insert Aqua ranting here

    Plus at work, I have two scanners plugged into my machine. One works with Win2K, one will not because HP hasn't updated the drivers yet - this being the third driver codebase they'll have to maintain for Microsoft OS's (the alternative being to maintain only two and abandon NT4). Out of all the cards and peripherals I've added to my aging machine over the years, I think I've had to install drivers like once. And that was only for added functionality. One thing that bugs me about PC folk in general is their automatic reaction - "Apple MUST open their hardware!" Shouldn't "freedom of choice" include "the freedom to choose a closed hardware/software architecture"? Even if you think it's stupid, at least try to understand there are some of us that like this relationship, propietary ROMs and all (Of course, those only live on in spirit, but still :).

    The only thing that's tempted me to switch primary platforms recently is the constant wear of going to PC-dominated offices every day, or checking Slashdot every day to see the same constant knee-jerk "MAC USERZ ARE ALL |D|0+5!" postings plastered all over any Apple-centric article. You wouldn't believe how much crap people give you when you work at an ISP or - god help you - an MIS department. Someday they'll tell my harrowing story. :) Oh well, could be worse - I could be an Amiga user! Now they're really crazy! *duck*

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