UPDATE: I just got off the phone with Nick Ciarelli, Think Secret’s publisher, and wrote it up for my day job over at Wired: Apple Kills Think Secret: Publisher Nick Ciarelli Talks
Apple rumor reporter extraordinaire Nick Ciarelli is shuttering his Think Secret website after settling a trade secrets lawsuit with Apple, Ciarelli writes on his website.
Apple had sued Ciarelli, who is studying at Harvard, after he published details of an unreleased music breakout box codenamed “Asteroid.” Apple sought the identity of whoever leaked the product details.
The settlement of the suit is confidential Ciarelli says, but doesn’t involve the identity of the leaker. But it does include closing his site.
“I’m pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits,” Ciarelli said in a statement.
I’ve already sent Nick an email asking if he’ll contribute to Wired News.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
14 responses to “Think Secret Settles Apple Lawsuit, Shuts Down”
Well, to be frank, Think Secret did have some very knowledgeable source inside Apple. There was one MacWorld where they have a pretty close description of everything Apple would launch, two or three days’ ahead. Apple is very, very close to the vest on these things. Whoever was leaking could obviously be fired — this was not a case where you could say that the public interest required that everyone know about the new iPods two days before Steve got on the stage. So, if Apple agree not to go after its leaker, and paid Think Secret to stop publishing, I think that’s okay, as wild as that sounds. Knowing the precise outlines of the iPhone a week ahead has implications for Apple’s stock value. They keep secrets better than anybody, including the CIA. Apple got its ears pinned back because of the California law that says these sites are journalism, and journalists cannot be required to divulge their sources. As a result, the financial settlement must have been high. And Think Secret, with its secret source no longer giving them tips, didn’t have much of interest anymore.
I have been a mac fan since getting a 128K mac in the early 80’s. What made apple so exciting was they seemed to be different, they cared about the user, not in some hippy CO-OP way were we all in this knitting our own yoghurt but as a user of the product. It treated the computer not as the once touted toaster but as a finely engineered extension to your self, like a quality watch a good suit or a fine motorcycle. It extended what you could do, it gave you freedom to explore the new digital world in a way that was both almost natural and yet total new and modern. They trusted you as a user and you trusted them. Thanks Apple it was so much fun. But now were both old, stuck in our ways curmudgeonly, quick to offend and just past it and well, its just over.
Without knowing all the particulars, this troubling news highlights the darker side of Apple. While companies need to protect their intellectual property, Apple creates its own headaches by thwarting the press and picking on bloggers who can’t fight back. This rant is typed on Apple’s sweet new keyboard by an excellent web designer listening to iTunes while charging his iPod on an Intel iMac. Long live Newton.
This is saddening, considering ThinkSecret and Cult of Mac are my top two sources for Mac news. :(
yeah, i can understand how people get upset when Apple moves like this, but the fact remains that they have to protect trade secrets. I don’t see how they can avoid that and remain competitive.
A necessary evil.
Oh well.
Can they do anything about this? Think Secret ?