Gizmodo posted last Thursday that the iPhone would be announced Monday. The entirety of their post:
I guarantee it. It isn't what I expected at all. And I've already said too much. -Brian Lam
This stirred up the blogosphere a decent amount. I thought it was potentially plausible; I knew Apple had to get past the FCC screening documents, which are public, so I always figured they'd be announcing the Apple phone first and then releasing it a few months down the line. The fact that this would be annouced without a Stevenote was really dubious; I don't think that such a highly anticipated product would be greeted by a mere press release. But like the rest of the internet, I figured why not wait until Monday and see what happened.
What happened was that Cisco launched a lackluster Skype phone. In other words, no one could care less.
Why Gizmodo would go out on a limb and do this floors me, to say the least. Gizmodo isn't a small-timer player- they've been around and have some weight to their existance. A ploy like this would be expected from someone wanting the quick traffic boost to their new blog. Why they let this Lam character post this is fairly insane. Yes, it was technically correct (the new Cisco phone is called iPhone), but they honestly couldn't believe anyone would give a crap about that. It's immediately obvious to anyone in the industry that that type of post coming from someone like Gizmodo would insinuate a real announcement from Apple about their new phone.
If they truly want to regain any sort of trust with their readers again, they'd can Brian Lam and reevaluate their policies at Gizmodo. There's already a backlash starting to form in the comments of their own blog, on many other blogs, digg, and other sites.
Edit: SMS Text News brought up the fact that Gizmodo had the initial post tagged with "Apple", so it's now clear they were deliberately taking advantage of their readership.
No, he already posted about it. He worded it in such a way that he obviously knew that he'd feed off of the Apple frenzy. The Cisco-branded iPhone came out today, and he already mentioned that this was the iPhone he alluded to on Thursday.
Ye, it's on BBC News website as well (The Cisco-iPhone) which came as a surprise.
He does anyone have any idea what the price of this iPhone will be and when will it be available in India??
Nope. To be honest, there's so much up in the air in terms of American availability that I wouldn't even touch any questions of international availability. The safest bet right now is "I don't know", really.
I can't wait until the iPhone (the real one that is, not the crap Cisco one) comes out! I wonder what they'll call it...
Likewise (which is part of the reason why everyone's blogging it... people want the real deal). Someone on digg pointed out that the rumors are mostly iPod-centric, so it's possible it might be designed as an iPod first, phone second. iPod Phone, perhaps, or maybe iPod Mobile (though iPods are already mobile, so who knows).
Hmmmm... It could just be Gizmodo playing with the viewers? I'm not really a usual at their site (although I have watched some of their video review), but from the words used in the post,
"It isn't what I expected at all."
I am led to believe that the post was more of a joke since this whole iPod phone thing is getting so much attention (largely undeserved imo since barely anything is actually known about it).
But it has already gone through screening at the FCC and all the specification are already out!
Not from anything I've heard. All the specs thrown around thus far are just rumors.
He's issued a reply:
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/iphoneygate-best-brian-lamgizmodo-hate-blog-ever-digg-it-222810.php
I am unmoved by it. I still don't see any sort of journalistic integrity exhibited by Lam. He keeps insisting that he's not a real journalist, that he wants to be just your friendly buddy talking about tech issues and that pranks are fun between friends, but if my friend did this I'd still criticize him. He's in a very persuasive position, and he wants people to read what he writes. If he keeps spouting off bullshit, why should we accredit him any worth?
Maybe he didn't actually mean the APPLE iPhone.
If that was posted on the 14th. Then that would mean this monday - today. There's still time.