Largely thanks to the recent WSJ story, the tech press has merrily been reporting that Apple has slashed iPhone 5 component orders, despite having literally no proof and a source known as Mr Familiar With The Matter (strange name, that). Apple’s share price has since tanked, and countless media organisations have copied and pasted bits of previous Apple articles they’ve published that include phrases such as “lost its edge” and “under threat from Android” and “we really don’t know what we’re talking about—man, we sure hope no-one notices”.

Next week, Apple will talk about its financials for the past quarter, which includes the festive season. Even with Apple’s problems during that time (late iMac shipments, relatively limited iPad mini and iPhone availability), you’d have to be an idiot to not predict Apple’s going to have a monster quarter. However, you’d merely need to be an analyst to argue Apple’s going to sell significantly more kit than its guidance went near (which is what’s now happening), and be hugely bullish about the iPhone 5 in the face of the WSJ story (which is also what’s now happening), leading to the tech press to, you’ve guessed it, also be bullish about the iPhone 5.

So the iPhone 5 is Schrödinger’s iPhone. It exists in two states at once: total disaster, failing under the mighty onslaught of Android device sales that no-one really qualifies because sales figures are never released, and massive success story. The first of those tanks Apple’s shares in the present; the latter potentially tanks Apple’s shares next week, when it’ll turn out the company’s massive profits won’t match made-up figures from analysts, and will therefore be called ‘disappointing’.

Because of this, let’s all demand a new rule from the tech press. Before reporting on any stories based on ‘sources’ (unnamed, naturally) or ‘analysts’ (unharmed, unfortunately) or ‘made-up bullshit’ (unacceptable, obviously), the following should be added:

THIS ARTICLE IS PROBABLY BULLSHIT AND YOU SHOULD IGNORE IT. SORRY ABOUT THAT.

That at least would stop people worrying about a problem that doesn’t exist, and free up space for technology stories that actually matter.

We’re one week into January, and already there’s a battle on for the most stupid Apple article in tech. This doesn’t bode well for the industry as a whole. At this rate, by March we’ll see ‘analysts’ arguing Tim Cook should become an actual cook, and that Jony Ive should turn every Apple device into a dodecahedron, just because.

I earlier today talked about a slice of Forbes stupid, but the ever reliable International Business Times has also been on hand with CES 2013: 6 Gadgets to Expect from Apple. Before we begin, it’s important to note that Apple does not attend CES. The last time it did so, over 20 years ago, John Sculley was CEO and Apple was pimping the Newton.

So, Vittorio Hernandez, what can we ‘expect’ from Apple. And by ‘we’, I mean ‘you’, after presumably taking in too much ‘candy’?

The Apple TV

Oh, here we go. If I was going to lazily bang out a list of upcoming Apple kit without even bothering to think about it, I guess the mythical Apple TV would be number one. Still, Hernandez takes it a step further than most, in providing the following information about the new device that Apple won’t in fact be displaying (because, remember, Apple won’t be at CES) and that doesn’t actually exist outside the minds of fevered tech hacks:

The next Apple TV that will appear in the upcoming CES 2013 event was predicted last year and it quotes “thinking differently.”

WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? Gah.

Anyway, number two:

Mac Pro

This one’s at least somewhat sane, but the chances of Apple announcing a new Mac Pro at CES are zero, largely due to Apple not attending CES. Even if Apple happened to be there, CES probably wouldn’t be the place the new hardware would be announced anyway. Still, Hernandez is on hand to talk about one of the new features of the Mac Pro hardware:

The next generation of Mac Pro […] is expected to have several outstanding improvements including the revolutionary video editing app – Final Cut Pro X.

Apple’s new hardware will feature… new software? Sigh.

If you’ve not yet lost the will to live, number 3 is:

iPad Mini: Finally, after comments and disappointments by many Apple users, the iPad Mini will have another version and this time, it comes with a Retina Display.

That’s right. Apple, having released the iPad mini in November, which is selling very nicely, will at CES, which it isn’t attending, ditch it in favour of an updated model. I imagine Hernandez has here taken Apple’s marketing spin about iPads being magical as a literal thing—after all, with today’s tech, there’s no way in hell the company would get a Retina display into the iPad mini and retain its light weight and thin form factor. Still, it’s not like reality is something Hernandez cares about, as evidenced by item four:

iPhone with Two Sizes

Unlike the existing iPhones that are for sale, in, um, two sizes.

Clearly on a roll and somewhat infatuated by the appeal of high-res displays, Hernandez then offers item five as ‘Retina display’, although mangles the sentence to the level I imagine all the sub editors had died from a combination of shame, despair and madness by this point:

Retina Display: iPad mini will finally have it but larger devices like iMac is not having any treats for this feature due to high cost. However, Macbook Air is going to have a retina display coming soon.

So the iMac “is not having any treats for this feature due to high cost”, but the MacBook Air (sorry, Macbook Air [sic]) is? Uh-huh.

And if those five weren’t enough to make you just give up on tech reporting and spend 2013 reading about kittens, number six delivers a knock-out blow:

New Camera Technology: The next generation of iPhone camera will come with a pre-installed database and new recognition software for recognizing paintings, landmarks, and famous people. This is a welcoming part for aspiring paparazzi.

Yay! New tech for creepy stalkers! I’m sure that’s going to get Cook to change his mind about CES and zoom over to get a stand right now. And never mind that Hernandez is talking about software, not hardware at this point, despite specifically mentioning the ‘iPhone camera’.

*Googles ‘articles about kittens’*

This is a great video, which shows Tommy Edison—who is blind—using Instagram. If nothing else, this highlights the importance of accessibility in modern technology, and the way it can make tasks more inclusive. Roll back 20 or 30 years and someone like Edison would have found it significantly harder to take the shots and would also have had no worldwide outlet. Today, with an iPhone, he can capture and share his surroundings, despite not being able to see them himself.

Apple talks about its devices being ‘magical’, and that’s mostly marketing guff, but in this kind of case, I think it’s a justifiable term. You can follow Edison here, and if you’re an iOS developer whose app isn’t fully accessible, I hope this might give you some inspiration and lead you to making your app available to all users.

Further reading: developer Matt Gemmell’s iOS accessibility articles.

I work hard. I just thought I’d put that out there, in case you thought a freelance lifestyle mainly involved lying around in my pants until about 4pm and then furiously typing out any old shit and filing it at about 4:15, just in time to catch whatever exciting children’s shows are on the tele. That’s why I increasingly despair about the level of absolute garbage churned out by the press, on sites that should know better. It seems these days I’m doing it wrong. Instead of bothering with trifling matters such as research, and engaging my brain, I should just be thinking “What’s the most stupid, inane Apple-related article I could get away with writing?” and pitch that to the editors at Forbes. I’d have to give up any vestige of integrity, but I could crank out such articles in my sleep, thereby enabling me to indeed shift towards that freelance ideal of lounging about and watching cartoons.

Forbes’s latest is Why Apple Should Hang-up On The iPhone, iWear Is Next, by contributor Richard Saintvilus. His own strapline appears to have a typo in it, spelling “I write total garbage about Apple” as “I provide news, analysis, and actionable investing ideas”. You’d think a sub might have caught that. Mind you, any sub worth their weight would have just drawn a red line through the entire piece and yelled at Saintvilus, unless, of course, Forbes only wants to bang the trolling drum these days.

Evidence for said drummage is pretty high. Saintvilus essentially argues Apple’s doomed (as ever), and rather bizarrely says

Apple now finds itself in an unfamiliar territory – having to prove itself.

Because, clearly, Apple hasn’t had to continually “prove itself” to the press before, even when making enough money for the executive board to use for building a new solid gold house every month or so. But what really makes the article stupid was hinted at in the headline and subsequently argued like this:

However, for the company to truly move forward as a tech power, Apple should hang-up on the iPhone after one more iteration – presumably the iPhone 6.

Apple has in the past had no problems in cannibalising its own markets in order to propel itself forward with the next big thing. For example, iPod sales continue to fall (although, as analysts regularly fail to note, iPods still bring in a pile of cash), but Apple has the iPhone to counter that. The thing is, the iPhone is by far Apple’s biggest revenue stream, and so if Tim Cook went crazy one day and cancelled the line, Apple would have to have something monumentally amazing to take over—something every single person in the world would immediately clamour for. Tell us, Saintvilus, what should that thing be?

Instead, Apple needs to focus on its TV ambitions, which I’ve said should include the Facebook “like” button.

I think I must have misread that. I thought you said Apple should ditch the iPhone in order to release a television with an integrated Facebook ‘like’ button. *rubs eyes*

Instead, Apple needs to focus on its TV ambitions, which I’ve said should include the Facebook “like” button.

Oh.

But Saintvilus is smarter than to suggest Apple should pin all its hopes on one product should it ditch the iPhone. Instead, he suggests:

“It’s time” for the iWatch or its iWear line of devices.

If the thought of Apple ditching its smartphone for a watch wasn’t enough to make you goggle-eyed, Saintvilus helpfully added that little pun. I hope you enjoyed it. He finishes with:

And for Apple, this will be the answer to that chronic “what’s next” question. And the company will finally be able to put to rest that other annoying question – can it still innovate?

The answer, sadly, being “no” if it follows Saintvilus’s advice, which isn’t quite what he was going for.

On iOS devices, Do Not Disturb is a handy feature that enables you to stop your device getting all noisy during a user-defined schedule, for example stopping gleeful text messages from O2 at three in the morning, saying your mobile balance has just been topped up. On January 1, this feature ‘helpfully’ didn’t work, enabling all iOS users to have a much-needed lie-in after having probably had far too much to drink the night before. According to Apple, the feature won’t start working again until January 7, requiring it to be manually turned on or off—not much cop for regularly silencing a device overnight.

In his latest piece for Macgasm, Harry Marks lays into the tech press for its “imaginary outrage” about what’s been dubbed Do-Not-Disturb-Gate, because, as we know, if something goes wrong with iOS, there’s literally nothing better for a tech hack than whacking ‘gate’ on the end of the specific thing that’s gone wrong.

Marks says:

It’s the talk of the town all over the blogosphere… mainly because there’s nothing else to talk about. A bug in iOS 6 appeared at the start of the new year that affects users of the system’s Do Not Disturb feature. Normally, Do Not Disturb automatically deactivates at a set time each day, but this bug prevents that from happening, which means the user must painstakingly go into Settings, then flick the Do Not Disturb switch to the “Off” position. How dreadful.

I agree entirely with Marks’s subsequent rantage that the press has, as usual, gone nuts about this issue, in typically overblown fashion. He’s also right that the press seems to think Apple exists in a perpetual state of scandal. To keep hits flooding in, Apple always has to be doing the tech equivalent of shoving babies on to spikes or pissing in someone’s soup. However, I don’t agree with wholeheartedly dismissing outrage from users, because this is a key problem with iOS and, crucially, this isn’t the first time Apple’s had problems with time-related features.

As people move towards being more reliant on their smartphones, basic and important functionality such as alarms and silence scheduling must work properly. Previously, Apple alarms have failed during switches to daylight savings time and as the calendar year has changed. That Do Not Disturb suddenly stopped working on New Year’s Day should have been a shock, but instead all I could think was “not again”.

Anyone arguing “this would never have happened if Steve Jobs, etc.” is of course deluded. Plenty went wrong with OS X, iOS and other aspects of Apple when he was alive. However, I have since the iPhone’s arrival felt a gradual but very real slide in Apple’s QA process. Bugs have become more frequent, and software has been less considered. Updates are rarer—and from a company that was never terribly interested in regular software patches in the first place. But there’s a big difference between something new going wrong (hello, Game Center for Mac) and a problem Apple has time and time again. Do Not Disturb failing to work is something that shouldn’t have happened, because someone should have remembered Apple’s previous failings with time-related features and rigorously tested it. That the feature did fail points to either a lack of engineers/testers at Apple, or a lack of giving a shit, and neither of those things is really acceptable.