Digitimes: We’re Sorry We Get All Our Apple Rumors Wrong

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Digitimes, the leading rumor monger in the Apple space
Digitimes, the leading rumor monger in the Apple space

Digitimes has been one of the main sources of Apple rumors over the last several years, but anyone who follows Apple will tell you that the Taiwanese publication is more often wrong than right. While Digitimes will correctly predict something like Apple making 3 variants of the iPad 2 (WiFi, GSM, CDMA), it will also publish a story saying that Apple is bringing micro-projectors to the iPhone.

After being placed under the microscope and heavily scrutinized by Harry McCracken of TIME, Digitimes has issued a statement explaining where its Apple rumors come from, and how the publication will do its best to provide more accurate information in the future.

In an email to TIME:

Hi Mr. McCracken,

Thank you for writing about us.

Digitimes has indeed reported much on Apple, and many of the products that we said would be launched have never been launched, or have had their launches delayed. But that does not mean that we were crying wolf or passing along gossip. In fact, Apple have a lot of its R&D projects and ideas tried out at its supply chain partners in Asia. Many of the prototypes created by the supply chain partners will never make it to the market after Apple’s assessments. This is one of the major reasons why a lot of the information we have disclosed has been seen by others as inaccurate, but is still valuable to our reader base in the supply chain. We understand the risks behind the kind of reporting we have been doing.

In the future we will implement even stricter requirements for verification of such stories. We will also add more analyses to such stories to provide readers with more valuable information.

Joseph Chen
Deputy Managing Editor
DIGITIMES WWWatch

McCracken says, “As far as I know, this is the first time that anyone at Digitimes has said anything publicly about its Apple stories and their level of accuracy, or lack thereof.”

Apple is known to prototype multiple versions of future products with crazy features (such as a physical keyboard on the original iPhone), and that strategy is usually the source of such contradictory Apple rumors. The key is searching for the nuggets of truth that paint a bigger picture. Then you can get a better idea of what Apple is planning.

Cult of Mac has continued to cover Digitimes rumors throughout the years because we want to let our readers know about the information that’s out there, but that’s never stopped us from being skeptical. Our faith in Digitimes has significantly waned over the years, but we do what we can to let you know when a story seems credible or not.

Most of the time sometimes an Apple rumor is wrong, but hey, that’s the fun of following Apple! It’s all about guessing what’s next.

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