Together we can end the scourge of the Apple rumor machine

This just in: Apple iDevices are about to become much smaller. They’re also going to be much larger. And some are going to remain exactly the same size but may be available in different colors and/or thicknesses. Are we clear on that?

It’s comforting to know that despite all the changes in the iOSphere, the Apple rumor machine continues to crank away like some perpetual-motion device, running for millennia long after its creators have crumbled into dust.

News of eensy iThings comes to us by way of Boy Genius Report, which took it from a website called PhoneArena, which found it on a Chinese-language site called Weibo, which requires a login I don’t have — so who knows what that story actually says? But according to BGR/PhoneArena/Weibo/your mom, Apple is planning two mini versions of the iPhone Lite with the unlikely names of Zenvo and Zagato/Bertone. (Apparently Apple has decided to name its phones after Pokemon characters.) Also: They’ll be available in delicious Starburst-candy colors. Isn’t that exciting?

Those are hardly the only iRumors swirling around the Webbernets. On the iWatch watch, the Financial Times reports Apple is aggressively seeking engineers to work on the new wrist-changing device. Multiple sources report that Apple is maybe/possibly working on an HDTV with ad skipping and gesture control, allowing you to wipe away those incredibly annoying Windows 8 dance commercials with a wave of your hand. New iPhones will sport fingerprint scanners for biometric security, 13-megapixel cameras, and video capture at 120 frames per second, according to some Random Dudes with Blogs.

What else? Oh yeah — new “indestructible” iPhones will be made from LiquidMetal, the same stuff that rendered the cyborgs so hard to kill in “Terminator 2.” Can iSkynet be far behind?

Wired’s Christina Bonnington even ranks the rumors, using her trusty Magic 8-Ball. Save for the iWatch, nearly all fall into the Don’t Count On It range.

Reality check

A somewhat more credible rumor comes to us by way of Wall Street Journal reporter Lorraine Luk in Taiwan, which notes that Apple has been asking it suppliers to provide screens larger than the current 4-inch model for the iPhone 5, as well as 13-inch touch-sensitive screens, suggesting a future iPad on steroids. To the WSJ’s credit, it acknowledges that even if Apple is asking for these screens, there’s no guarantee we’ll ever see them in future products, a detail its more breathless blogging brethren seem determined to overlook.

The Journal also notes new iPhones expected to come out later this year will look and feel pretty much like the current crop of iPhones. Somewhere, fanboys are curled up behind the Genius Bar at their local Apple shrine, quietly sobbing, “Damn you, incremental but non-life-altering improvements. Damn you to hell!”

Rumormongers get a taste of their own medicine

Speaking of sobbing fanboys, today’s news also brings us another delightful screed on the current sorry state of tech journalism, courtesy of TechCrunch blogger-turned-venture-capitalist MG Siegler. Regular readers will recall that I’ve had a few disagreements with Siegler over the years, putting me in excellent company with Dan Lyons, Jason Pontin, and Kara Swisher, among other tech journos of note.

After years of writing invisibly sourced, aggressively speculative stories that turned out to have no basis in actual fact — then “re-reporting” them later as not true without ever publishing a retraction or admitting any errors — Siegler now has issues with the accuracy of tech reporting. To wit:

… on any given day, I’d say 75 percent of what you read in the tech press is somewhat accurate, 20 percent is complete b***s***, and 5 percent is actually true. …

There has long been a “speed versus accuracy” debate within the tech blogosphere. When I was in that world, I was definitely in the “speed” camp. Get something out there and let the truth reveal itself — process journalism, baby. If the readers aren’t comfortable with that, let them read elsewhere.

But my fear now is that we’re veering too far into the world of half-truths and straight-up b***s***. Everything reported on, no matter how inaccurate is often taken as gospel and spread further. Speed and exaggeration have won, accuracy and nuance are nearly dead. It’s not quite another age of yellow journalism yet, but we’re getting there.

Ya think? This is a little like Paula Deen suddenly coming out in favor of the NAACP and the health benefits of low-cholesterol foods.

I suspect a few years from now, after his CrunchFund has withered away and Siegler no longer gets to play with other people’s money, he will have a come-to-Jesus moment about venture capitalists as well. (Hint: They’re not such swell guys after all.)

TechCrunch, Boy Genius Report, and their ilk helped create this infernal rumor machine, and now they desperately need to keep it alive to survive. I say the sooner someone drives a stake through its heart, the better — less noise, more signal. Besides the fanboys and the traffic whores, does anyone give a rat’s posterior about whether the next iPhone will be 4.5 inches wide and available in Orange Orange?

A wise man guy once said:

Don’t write something because you can. Write something because you should. Or don’t write anything at all.

Oh wait, that was Siegler, too. I look forward to the day he and his blogging comrades actually follow that advice.

This article, “Together we can end the scourge of the Apple rumor machine,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com.