Is it just me, or has the rumor mill surrounding Monday’s WWDC keynote by Mr. Jobs been strangely quiet? Perhaps I’ve just grown accustomed to expectations being frapped to a foam in the days and weeks preceding the distortion of the reality field. But, this time it seems quiet… Too quiet.
When the Gizmodo story broke, I thought it was odd that a top-secret piece of Apple tech would wind up in a place where the tech press could sink their blogging teeth into it. I also extended my thoughts to Mr. Powell’s family since he was surely going to be executed my Mr. Jobs. Then, a month and a half later, another unit is leaked (allegedly) in Vietnam. Now, that’s two leaks in 6 weeks from the company that fired an engineer for showing the co-founder of the company a prototype iPad during a legally gray time. Seems unlikely, right?
Apple has also been a victim of its own buzz a couple of times. By the time the actual announcement rolled around, the interested parties had speculated such miraculous offerings that the reality could only pale in comparison. So, how do you defuse that overinflated sense of expectation? You present them with a probable scenario that is less exciting than the one you are about to play out.
My daughter’s soccer coach used to yell “Look! Scooby-Doo!” and the kids would look. Then he would dribble around the whole lot of ’em and pretend like he was going to score before letting them take the ball back from him. What if the leaked phones are just Apple yelling, “Look! Scooby-Doo!” at us? It might be just distracting enough that we forget about the massive data center they’re building, or the hardware and software that are due for a refresh. It might just keep us distracted enough for them to score a goal.