Who Knew?

Kind of a shocking article about how Apple “punishes” press outlets who release information or opinions about its products that the company doesn’t want in the public discussion.

After going after “Apple rumor sites” without success, only belatedly figuring out that the constant buzz they generated was helping the company more than hurting it, [our belief is that] Apple has now decided to “punish” buzzkillers—journalists who the company doesn’t consider friendly enough to its marketing mission. And by “punish,” we mean to say that this specific word is used to refer to what happens if someone has said something Apple doesn’t approve of. Amongst the topics on the forbidden list: specifics of the Made For iPod and Works With iPhone licensing programs, its undisclosed and unexplained lock-down of video accessories, that bizarre “we have to charge now for software updates” policy, and defective products.

iLounge was prompted to write about the subject after their iPod shuffle review mentioned a new authentication technology that prevents anyone from controlling the device with non-Apple headphones. (There’s an authentication chip in the included earbuds, and Apple will be licensing the chip to third-party manufacturers, but any pre-existing remote control headphones won’t work with the new iPod.) The chip was mentioned on the seventh page of a nine-page review, but Apple has still declined to invite them to their iPhone event tomorrow (making them miss out on some major coverage.)