There’s a lot of money in writing about Apple rumors, but as Chris Rawson at TUAW pointed out in January, the vast majority of articles are not to be trusted.
As we approach the fall launch of the next iPhone, we thought it’d be fun to look back at some of the most outlandish iPhone rumors previously published — all due respect to those reporters who were fooled.
"Future Mac computers will feature unique screws that prevent tampering."
The Cult of Mac — among several other news sites — posted a bogus rumor in August 2012 from a throwaway Reddit account that said Apple was working on an asymmetric screw design that would effectively lock out tinkerers that wanted to play around inside their Mac computers. The rumor was later discovered to have been fabricated by a Swedish design company called Day4, and several Apple websites issued their respective mea culpas after that.
"Apple will announce a game controller in 2013."
In March 2013, citing "multiple developer sources," PocketGamer provided "confirmation" that Apple was in talks with game developers at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco about its plans to launch a "dedicated game controller ... ensuring plenty of games will support the joypad at launch."
Apple didn't release a game controller last year, and although Apple has a 2010 patent for a dedicated game controller (pictured here), it's not clear why Apple would ever do such a thing. (Veteran Apple reporter Jim Dalrymple quickly refuted this report soon after it was published.)
"The 2011 iPhone will be called 'iPhone 5.'"
Just about every single tech site got this rumor wrong in 2011. CNET was one of the few companies to insist on the name "iPhone 4S." The Verge editor-in-chief Josh Topolsky, then at Engadget, said the "iPhone 5" would be a "completely redesigned handset" that would launch in the summer. Instead, that year's iPhone was the 4S, not the 5, and the phone's hardware was not redesigned at all.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider