User blog:Pippinitis/LOL rumor sites

There's an disproportionate amount of energy being poured into rumors of new iPhone 12 and iPad Pro models as things are reaching a fever pitch for the October 2020 event. Wikipedia has their rule about overt speculation, but we're not Wikipedia, so here's a few practical guidelines I'd like to lay out so we can keep the fun and enthusiasm, without turning into a fanon site...


 * Most important, include a link or reference to the source from where you're getting your info from, so we know you're not just making it up.
 * Ideal sources that warrant new stand-alone articles should be confirmed information from Apple itself, data gleaned from beta releases, or confirmed leaks of information from manufacturers in Apple's supply chain (photos of parts are helpful for confirmation). Unless a third-party statement is from a respected market analyst with a good track record like Ming-Chi Kuo, a random blog saying "zOMG I think AAPL will make iPhone 6000SUX next!!!1!1!" doesn't hold much weight.
 * Read your source carefully, hedged words like "think", "speculated" and "rumored" don't inspire confidence in certainty.

Perhaps we should create a new speculation or rumor template for items of a speculative nature which are not set in stone (but still properly sourced).

Speculation which got it right

 * iPhone 4, because an Apple employee left it in a bar and the news covered Steve Jobs himself getting involved to get it back.
 * Apple Watch Series 6, because... duh.

Speculation which didn't quite get it right

 * Apple Watch Series 6 Pro -> low-priced Apple Watch SE was released instead.
 * iPhone 7S -> iPhone 8 was released instead.
 * iPhone 9 -> IPhone SE (2nd generation) was released instead.
 * macOS 10.16 -> macOS 11 was released instead.

Toss ups

 * iPhone X, some accurate revisions to predictions in the weeks before the announcement.
 * iPhone 11, some accurate predictions while others guessed "iPhone 11R".