March 16 Apple event, no. March 23 Apple event, no. Delayed, canceled, just what the Federici is going on right now?
Back on October 16, 2020, John Prosser tweeted that the AirPods Max would headline an Apple Event on March 16, 2021. And John is currently rated 78% accurate across 147 rumors. But obviously AirPods Max came out already, they came out last year, last December. So, wait, no, there's more. On February 19, 2021, China's Economic Daily News reported or just repeated the same date. That site is rated at like 37% accurate across 38 rumors, but they also quoted a fake anonymous leaker account. So I guess put that in your internet barbecue and slow roast it, because it is totally unclear if that was based on any reporting at all or just the original report from John and that fake leaker account. It gets better.
Later that same day, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman dropped like a flying elbow from the top rope right onto the report, saying there wouldn't be a March 16 Apple event. And then whatever the opposite of clarifying is, he said that March 16th wouldn't be the launch. Which I guess you could take as meaning March 16 wasn't the date or that there wasn't gonna be an event, just a launch. Because while Mark might be rated at 89% accurate across like, 402 rumors, he can also be just cryptic as hell and even way beyond salty at times.
So then nobody knew what to expect anymore until March 8th, when Kang the rumor conqueror, 98% accurate, 98% across 134 rumors, reported the Apple event would be on the same date as the OnePlus event. In other words, March 23, but just to add fuel to that hot roasting rumor fire, around the same time, John Prosser tweeted the number 23 and then followed up on Kang's rumors saying, he hadn't even known about the OnePlus event. And then claimed a reliable source told him that AirTags, iPad Pro, AirPods, presumably AirPods 3, maybe AirPods Pro 2 and the Apple TV refresh were all good to go. And then on March 12th, l0vetodream, the Apple cat, not at all to be confused with Ice universe, the Samsung cat because everybody got to be a cat, who's rated 89%, tweeted, "enjoy 23." And then followed up on the 15th with a tweet saying, mini led not just for iPad, which made everybody just go full on Lady Gaga about new or at least the potential for new MacBook Pros as well.
And so anticipation started to build. Everyone started waiting for invitations to go out, for websites to go up, for Greg Joswiak, Joz, to tweet out some major AR kit event logo flex, but today, 9:00 AM Pacific Time, came and went with precisely zero, zero Apple event news. I mean, aside from some just wicked, wicked obvious thirst traps. I mean at least wicked, wicked obvious to most people. R.I.P. Until finally, finally, Apple pushed out the news, Oprah and Siri. And yeah, you can now ask Siri all about Oprah, you are welcome, happy Tuesday, love Apple, slam troll dunk.
And now the internet is just strewn with the corpses of expired blog posts, curdled Twitter hot takes and videos all burned beyond anyone trying to watch that Snyder Cut premiere last night. And here's the thing, it doesn't sound like there was ever March 16 or March 23 Apple event, at least not on the books. Maybe those dates were bandied about a while back. Maybe they echoed around and got leaked out. Maybe they were just canary traps designed to be part of Apple's continued crack down on leakers. See my video from this weekend. Because it's not just about John Prosser and his eyebrows getting it wrong, it's about l0vetodream and Kang getting it wrong.
And these are a lot of people with a lot of track records, all getting the same thing wrong at roughly the same time. Maybe now that Apple doesn't have to worry about renting out venues like Yerba Buena or Moscone anywhere nearly as much, or even bringing teams and guests in from around the world, maybe they can just be more flexible about scheduling or shifting schedules, at least as product timelines shift. Or maybe they can just look at some combination of events for truly new products. Maybe March 30th, maybe April 6th. God, maybe they'll make us wait until WWDC in June. But come on, Apple, we need this stuff.
And then press release drops like previous years for any products that are more iterative, more updates, that doesn't require the entire video apparatus at Apple to spin up. And if this helps to keep not just the fake leakers at bay but some of the inter-leaker, inter-reporter drama, the salt down, so much the better for everyone, so much the better for what's becoming increasingly toxic leak culture. Because swear to Joz, if I have to pull any more egos over and turn this whole next event around, I will do it.