Apple lawyer smacks Gawker with Mac tablet hint
Wins 'fabulous' gift pack
Super-secretive Apple has provided some of the best evidence yet that its long-rumored tablet is on the way. No, not by leaking photos or specs, but instead by threatening a website about soliciting said photos or specs.
On Wednesday, Gawker Media's Valleywag blog announced its Apple Tablet Scavenger Hunt, which offers hefty cash awards to anyone who could provide concrete evidence of the existence of the elusive tablet.
Thursday, Gawker received a letter from Apple's lawyers warning them against soliciting "photos, video, or a sample of an unannounced and highly confidential Apple product."
The wording of that warning seems to infer that there is, indeed, "an unannounced and highly confidential Apple product" that Apple wishes to protect.
The letter, from the Menlo Park, California law firm of Orick, Harrington, and Sutcliffe, goes on to note: "While Apple values and appreciates vibrant public commentary about its products, we believe you and your company have crossed the line by offering a bounty for theft of Apple's trade secrets. Such an offer is illegal and Apple insists that you immediately discontinue the Scavenger Hunt."
Gawker is taking the threat in good humor, however, congratulating the lawyer who sent it for providing "the most concrete evidence (from Apple itself, no less!) yet that there may indeed be a tablet in the works."
And although the lawyer didn't win the Scavenger Hunt's $100,000 grand prize, to be granted to the worthy who provides an Apple tablet to the Gawkers and lets them "play with it for one hour," he's not walking away empty-handed. To show their appreciation, the Valleywags are sending him a DVD of Legally Blonde 2, a $25 Zune Marketplace giftcard, and "a fabulous set of steak knives!" ®
COMMENTS
ouch!
A Zune gift card to an Apple mouth piece. That has got to hurt!
Hehehe...
Or;
'Today, here it is, the very first electric car made by Apple, the i5'
A revolution in transport history. Now if any of you have any questions, could you direct them to our project lead, Clive, come up here...
Paris, touch sensitive.
iHype
This is just part of Apple's marketing machine bellowing the coals in preparation of the launch. They knew full well their actions would feed the rumour mill and get more people talking about it, ensuring huge anticipation by the time it arrives - to a press frenzy. Expect any iSlate to be on the front page of the BBC news website and reported on the 6 and 9 O'Clock news.
Seriously... This is the main BBC News bulletin... Earthquake in Haiti, Obama follows Brown by imposing big taxes on banks, Teddy Pendergrass has died... and Apple, the computer company who have been making computers since the 70s, have made a computer. It looks like a big iPhone but is a proper computer instead, with high failure rates due to too many dum-dums crushing them.
Like iFlavor iFlav used to say before reaching his 50s, Don't believe the hype, fanBooooyyyy!
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/3301/igotlm0.jpg
Evidence?
So this action by Apple "has provided some of the best evidence yet that its long-rumoured tablet is on the way"?
Tell that to Think Secret (if it was still going that is). Apple didn't release any Garageband breakout box (codename Asteroid) that the rumour site reported - but did take legal action about the reports, which led to Think Secret's demise.
Also, after Jobs returned to the Apple fold, Apple employees became far more tight-lipped and took leaks/rumour sites far more seriously (Think Secret being an example) - so I don't think Apple is going to take kindly with a site offering cash rewards for information about a future product, regardless whether the product is real or just the result of fevered speculation.
Not wishing to be a pedant (but I will), in the sentence, ‘The wording of that warning seems to infer that there is, indeed, "an unannounced and highly confidential Apple product" that Apple wishes to protect,’ it would have been more appropriate to use ‘imply’ instead of ‘infer.’ The person making the message implies, the receiver infers.
So maybe some people missed a point...
Inciting people to attempt corporate espionage is at least civilly liable, if not criminal. Most assuredly a tablet isn't the only thing Apple is secretly trying to develop, and wouldn't it just be bad for their ability to surprise competitors if the new device they are going to present isn't a tablet but IS something quite revolutionary? Apple doesn't want Gawker to have people looking for a needle in the haystack just to have them end up finding the farmer's daughter. Imagine if some bounty had been offered for some device back in the early 2000s and someone going for that had managed to stumble upon Apple's long secret Intel machine running OS X?
Apple saying 'don't incite onerous behavior' doesn't prove there's a tablet, it just reinforces that Apple likes it's secrets and has plenty to concern itself with.
