Apple’s obsession with secrecy is well-established, and
there is quite a cottage industry of bloggers and Apple Web sites dedicated to
exposing their secrets. One of the more impressive efforts came during the
iPhone 3GS launch, where one site was tracking a shipping vessel from
to be carrying the phones. The site even had the manifest.
But other times, all you need is a little carelessness. Case
in point: the folks who gave away Apple’s upcoming tablet and new MacBooks. In
the case of the MacBooks, it was Apple that did it.
The bigger news is the iPad, iTablet, or whatever you want
to call it. The rumor mill has Apple releasing this thing early next year. Word
is it’s basically a large version of the iPod Touch, but with things like
windows and allowing multiple apps to run at once. There might even be two of
them with different size screens.
Well, New York Times Executive Editor for news Bill Keller
committed what we in the profession call “an oops.” While speaking at
the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University last week, the Times newsroom
boss was discussing all of the issues of print vs. electronic, pay vs. free,
and then said this (at the 8:30 mark).
“I’m hoping we can get the newsroom more actively
involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of
Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate…”