Farewell Message

[gwhizkids]

At this stage, nothing would surprise me about this thread.

For one thing, I harbour some slight doubt as to the existence of the (much maligned) sister.

The extraordinary degree of emotion of the OP's original post - that is, if it is at all genuine and not an Apple fishing expedition, or a troll thread, - suggests to me that rather than an unfortunate sibling, he himself might have been the culprit in question.

However, it may not be given to us to learn more about these matters.

I’m with you. I think 941 was the employee or contractor. At the very least, the sister was a ploy to throw off the scent.

Can you imagine how it would have been otherwise?

[Sis]: Hey little bro! Come check out the cool stuff I’ve been working on. Make sure you don’t tell anyone, ok? I could be fired or sued just for showing you this stuff.
[941]: You got it, Sis! I would never dream of taking all the design drawings you have, spending hours re-rendering them to appear slightly differently and then posting them all over the web in an effort to outdo Mark Gurman.
[Sis]: Haha! Better not! Oh, excuse me, I need to take a 45 minute call from upstairs.
[941]: [screen grabs all the design drawings and renders]

45 minutes later

[Sis, on returning from her conference call]: I thought my laptop was open to the new Apple Watch homescreen mockup. You didn’t touch my MacBook did you, little bro?
[941]: oh no, the dog pushed it.

 

[Huntn]

How Apple catches leakers: From color changes to commas

Yesterday saw @analyst941 delete his Twitter account, claiming that he had been forced to do so after Apple carried out...

9to5mac.com

Apple has so many methods of identifying leakers – some of them incredibly subtle – that we and others have to be extremely careful in order to protect our sources …

Given Apple’s emphasis on product design, it’s no surprise that the company works particularly hard to prevent leaks of visual materials: product images, drawings, blueprints, CAD images, and the like.

It used to be commonplace for tech sites to share these images directly, but Apple came up with a wide variety of ways to identify exactly which copy of an image was shared. Each individual who received an image would be given a unique one.

Here are just a few of the methods Apple is known or believed to use …

• Invisible watermarks
• Filenames
• Serial numbers
• Subtle typeface changes
• Non-subtle typeface changes
• Wording or punctuation changes
• False information

Excellent article to look at from 9to5Mac

I really like the different product release dates circulated to ID the mole! I saw that in a movie once.

 

[rm5]

The extraordinary degree of emotion of the OP's original post - that is, if it is at all genuine and not an Apple fishing expedition, or a troll thread, - suggests to me that rather than an unfortunate sibling, he himself might have been the culprit in question.

Right, this is something that others have suggested. I think they might've done it themself, although I'm not sure (and I don't think anyone is). At this point, it almost doesn't matter. This has been going on for over a week, so we likely will never know for sure

 

[rm5]

Here's my thoughts on this thread as a whole:

1. OP shouldn't have leaked information in the first place
2. OP (IMO) knew what they were getting into when they posted the leaks
3. The whole sister deal could have been "created" to cover their tracks, but obviously we don't know for sure
4. You can feel as bad as you want for this leaker, but they were clearly in the wrong here.

Feel free to disagree to any/all of the above points, again, just my thoughts.

 

[gwhizkids]

Here's my thoughts on this thread as a whole:

1. OP shouldn't have leaked information in the first place
2. OP (IMO) knew what they were getting into when they posted the leaks
3. The whole sister deal could have been "created" to cover their tracks, but obviously we don't know for sure
4. You can feel as bad as you want for this leaker, but they were clearly in the wrong here.

Feel free to disagree to any/all of the above points, again, just my thoughts.

100% agree

 

[73CortinaV8]

imagine the narcissism involved in costing your own sister a job of a lifetime in the pursuit of internet popularity.

 

[73CortinaV8]

Classic canary trap victim.

There’s a reason why Mark Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo survived this long in the game. Anybody can post real time info on Twitter based on Apple sources. The real trick is they wait for multiple reliable contacts to verify any information they are given to ensure it’s real and untraceable.

The capacitive button thing probably put it over the top. Your sister probably had access to preproduction hardware. It’s so easy to fool those testers by sending different hardware. Without access to supply chain info, she didn’t know Apple had cancelled the buttons and was probably told by Apple to continue work assuming the haptic buttons still exist.

I think Apple feeds Ming-Chi Kuo information for controlled leaks, aka "marketing"

 

[JPack]

I think Apple feeds Ming-Chi Kuo information for controlled leaks, aka "marketing"

Nah, Kuo is simply way too deep in the supply chain for Apple to do anything about it. What is Apple going to do, cut off TSMC, BOE, Cirrus Logic, or Foxconn for leaking info to him?

People often pooh-pooh his unpopular predictions until it becomes real.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1505215565308350479

 

[gwhizkids]

imagine the narcissism involved in costing your own sister a job of a lifetime in the pursuit of internet popularity.

And getting almost everything wrong.

 

[rhett7660]

And getting almost everything wrong.

One word... "Idiot".