Apple leakers: can you trust any of them?
There are dozens of “insiders” claiming to be leaking Apple product announcements. James O’Malley investigates if the would-be Deep Throats really know anything
There are dozens of “insiders” who claim they’re leaking Apple product news before it’s formally announced, but do they actually know anything?
D uring the Cold War, one of the biggest problems faced by the west was understanding what was happening in Moscow. The Russian government was so secretive that any information that did emerge was pored over by analysts looking for clues to what the Kremlin was planning next. The people who became experts in deciphering these limited signals were sometimes referred to as “Kremlinologists”.
Today, the world is different but some things remain the same. There’s still a hugely powerful, mysterious force in the world that refuses to explain itself. It’s just this one is based in Cupertino, California.
Apple is notoriously secretive and, consequently, the company has a band of modern Kremlinologists watching its every move too. Spend enough time reading technology blogs or clicking through YouTube channels and you’ll find a near-constant stream of analysis and speculation informed by supposed “leaks”, mostly from anonymous Twitter accounts.
These anonymous accounts tell us things such as that Apple is working on a games console, that iMessage is going to launch on Android or even that Apple is going to bring back the headphone jack. But there’s usually little, if any, concrete proof attached.
So you don’t have to be too much of a cynic to wonder: is this just nonsense?
The code names
What’s unusual about a lot of these rumour-mongering stories is that they come from self-styled “leakers”, who are part of an entire miniature subculture of anonymous Apple watchers. It’s why stories are often attributed to people with names such as “Kang” and “CoinX”.
Often all they have to do is post a few random characters and their supposed prophecy will light up the tech blogosphere. And the leakers know this. They will often post deliberately cryptic hints, rather than clearly stating whatever the headline news is.
For example, last October L0vetodream, a leaker with a credible track record, tweeted “MESA uts for iPhone”. This revealed the supposed leak that a future iPhone will bring back fingerprint TouchID, which is code-named “MESA” inside Apple, but this time the sensor will be placed underneath the screen (hence “uts”).
Why so cryptic? “It’s a game for them. They know it, they’ve seen it. And they want to give somebody a taste, but they get some sick pleasure out of knowing that nobody else in the world knows,” laughed tech YouTuber Sam Kuhlmeyer, who has built his reputation tracking the credibility of Apple rumours.
Most of the notorious leakers take a similarly playful approach, but the scene also counts a handful of traditional journalists in its ranks. Mark Gurman, an
alumni of Apple blog 9to5Mac, is now a reporter for US financial news service Bloomberg and is widely regarded as one of the most credible sources of Apple leaks. But real journalists tend to be the exception rather than the norm, and the reason why may explain the need for anonymity.
“While leaking and traditional journalistic reporting do overlap in some instances, the main differentiator is that most publications – and by extension, most journalists – won’t republish imagery,” explained Evan Blass, a former leaker who revealed countless Android devices on his Twitter account @evleaks. “Generally established outlets won’t touch original, copyrighted artwork of the companies they cover. Leakers don’t tend to have such qualms.”
Sorting the bad Apples
So without the credibility of a journalistic institution to rely on, how can we tell the credible leaks from the lies?
“Here’s the number one thing: if the person shares seven things in one day, and they do it once a week, you are not getting [real information]. I don’t know if a person that has access to the Mac, iPad, Watch and AirPods divisions shares information all at the same time, once a week,” said Kuhlmeyer. “Generally, good sources start out very slow and they’re very careful.
“If somebody has an image of the next iPad and they’re a no-name person, it’s probably too good to be true that they got this and nobody else who leaks Apple stuff [did],” Kuhlmeyer added.
Leakers are ultimately judged by their track record.
“As with any other pursuit, leakers live and die based on their performance,” said Blass. “Generally speaking, trustworthy leakers will develop loyal followings and those with spottier credentials will die under the weight of public opinion.”
It’s only in the past year or so that the leaking scene has gained a new tool to help keep tabs on this. As a result, a minor revolution in Apple leaking has taken place.
If somebody has an image of the next iPad and they’re a no-name person, it’s probably too good to be true
Covering so many purported leaks on his YouTube channel, Kuhlmeyer eventually hit a breaking point. So he decided to do something about it. “It was the weirdest time in rumour history, nobody had really been [held] accountable,” he explained. “There were a lot of new people who came on the scene who were really fraudulent, and a lot of new people who came on the scene who were starting to be really good. And I was like, wait, this is really confusing.”
He says it was the launch of the second-gen iPhone SE last year that finally pushed him to create AppleTrack, a site that marks the homework of the leakers ( appletrack. com/leaderboard), scoring each supposed leak with “true”, “false” or “pending”.
Kuhlmeyer told PC Pro how he spent hours going back through the claims of the most high-profile leakers to work out which ones turned out to be true and which were false. He was then able to give each of them an accuracy rating.
Today, it isn’t uncommon to see AppleTrack’s data cited by other blogs and YouTube channels when reporting on leaks, as an indication of how credible audiences should consider it. AppleTrack has become the de facto ratings agency for the leaking scene. “We needed a way to stabilise the news cycle and I feel like this is the way to do it,” Kuhlmeyer said. “We just need a centralised authority to [say], you’re doing this right. And you’re a complete fake and fraud.”
Finally, then, we can indeed take the information delivered by some leakers seriously. The silly names and the cloak-and-dagger theatrics really can be credible sources of accurate information. But perhaps the most important thing is to approach leaks with another idea from the Cold War: “trust, but verify”.
Before you get too excited about the Apple VR headset leak, it’s probably best to check AppleTrack first.