Why Are Most Stories About Apple And Other Big Tech Companies Unsubstantiated Guff and Hot Air?

I like Macworld magazine. I’ve been reading it for a long time and I respect the team that put it together. That does not mean, however, that they are immune to the vacuous nonsense that passes as tech news these days – particularly when it refers to Apple.

Take the story which just popped up in my RSS news feed, entitled, ‘Slimmer’ iPhone coming later this year – analyst. This story, plucked from the Apple Insider website and rehashed badly by Ben Camm-Jones is an absolute gem – a non-story based on a rumour based on nothing but gut feelings and hot fucking air.

Let’s have a look at the facts, for want of a better word, that are presented to us in the Apple Insider/Macworld ‘story’. Firstly we discover that the source for the story is an ‘analyst’ at the investment bank Morgan Stanley by the name of Katy Huberty. You know Morgan Stanley, they’re those fuckwits at the epicentre of the global financial crisis who needed a $9b handout from the Japanese in order to stay afloat – so clearly we should trust the information produced by the far-sighted geniuses they employ.

So, we’ve established that the source of the story is an employee of the sort of investment banks that everyone loves these days. What does Katy have to say? Well, firstly, we are told that the next iPhone will be ‘slimmer’ than the current model. Well fuck me backwards – slimmer you say? I thought they’d revert to those old house brick sized mobiles that the yuppies used to wander around the City with back in the 1980s. Not only is this staggering insight put forward, but it’s such a big deal that it merits mention in the title of the ‘news’ story. Katy – are you seriously suggesting that you get paid money to produce reports with gems like that in them? I don’t know what’s worse, that Morgan Stanley produce this guff or that tech websites then repeat it like dogs throwing up next door’s three week old Chinese takeaway.

What’s next then? We are told that the miracle breakthrough that will allow the next iPhone to reduce in size will be due to (and I quote), “new touch panel technology.” Imagine that – touch screen technology will not, in fact, remain unchanged for the next thousand years – it will evolve and change. And even better friends, Apple are going to use some of that changing technology in their next iPhone!

We are then informed by Apple Insider/Macworld that the Morgan Stanley analyst conceded that, “other details of the next-generation iPhone remained sparse.” Of course that doesn’t stop her cavorting off into fairyland, dreaming up more stuff that Apple may or may not decide to install in their next iPhone. Katy ‘believes’ that it’ll come with a quad-mode chip from Qualcomm. Well, I believe in money trees Katy and I hope to discover one in Faraway Land any time soon.

Another gem then issues force from the Apple Insider/Macworld/Katy Hubert mouthpiece. Katy believes (no, really, she does) that “demand for the next-generation device will be strong.” Fucking hell, I was hoping I could saunter into my nearest Apple Store on launch day and take my pick from the eager staff in the struggling high street retailer’s premises, instead of having to, you know, fight through the legions of devoted Apple fanatics who’d buy an iDogshit if it came stamped with ‘Made in Cupertino by Apple’ on the base.

And that’s it. Someone in a bank that can’t balance its own books ‘believes’ the next iPhone will be slimmer and more powerful and people will want to buy it. Macworld, Apple Insider, Katy, we don’t claim to bring hard-hitting reportage to the masses here at Geekosity. We’re just a frivolous little tech news blog bringing small gobbets of information about interesting software and gadgets to a tiny readership. But if I ever sink as low as publishing the sort of fucking travesty of a story that you guys have the planet-sized balls to put out, I will close my doors and never bother another soul online again. Ever.

Slimmer, you say?