Perhaps one of the most interesting things to come out of the September Apple event was how wrong everyone was.
The run-up to Apple’s September 14 event, like many other advance announcements, was filled with leaks and rumors about all the new things Apple would announce. To the credit of the leakers, some things were a success. Unfortunately, many other rumors were very, very misplaced. That’s the game you play with the leaks.
What was particularly surprising, however, was that some very prominent figures were incredibly wrong about a big rumor: the capabilities of the satellite iPhone. Although I wouldn’t call myself a prominent figure, I was also quite wrong.
As a quick refresher, the satellite iPhone rumor started when analyst Ming-chi Kuo reported that the iPhone 13’s modem would support the n53 band, a portion of the terrestrial spectrum largely owned by satellite operator Globalstar. Several posts picked up the news and it seemed that ‘iPhone 13 will support band n53’ became ‘iPhone 13 will support Globalstar’. That, in turn, became ‘iPhone 13 will have satellite capability’.
PC MagSascha Segan initially offered the explanation that this was all about n53 band compatibility and that the satellite part of the rumor was, well, a broken phone. Nevertheless, From Bloomberg The trusted Mark Gurman later reported that Apple was considering satellite features. Gurman published a detailed description of the satellite’s capabilities, but emphasized that they would likely arrive on a later iPhone.
Now that Apple has revealed its iPhone 13 and 13 Pro models, it is clear that these rumors were even more wrong than previously thought. Segan pointed out in a new article about rumors that the iPhone 13 not even compatible with n53 band, which started this whole saga.
Again, that’s the danger in playing the rumor game. Sometimes rumors are wrong – the more you buy them, the more it hurts when things don’t go as expected. However, the number of people who got the iPhone 13 launch wrong is still staggering and makes me wonder if there isn’t more to do here.
Perhaps Apple shared false information to root out the leaks. That may sound far-fetched, but in August, a report indicated that Apple had a double agent in the iPhone jailbreak and leak community for more than a year; It’s not that hard to believe that the company would deliberately spread false information to catch leakers. Segan also suggested that there could be a darker side to the saga, potentially in the form of a “pump and dump” scheme. Globalstar shares rose significantly after the initial report.
Either way, maybe this is something of a lesson to reporters, fans, and everyone else that leaks can make things wrong.