Think Secret, founded in 1998, was a web site which specialized in publishing reports and rumors about
Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
The name of the site was a play on Apple's one-time advertising slogan, "
Think Different
"Think different" is an advertising slogan used from 1997 to 2002 by Apple Computer, Inc., now named Apple Inc. The campaign was created by the Los Angeles office of advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day.
The slogan has been widely taken as a respon ...
". Think Secret's archives reached as far back as May 3, 1999. On December 20, 2007, it was announced that the site would eventually shut down as part of a legal settlement.
Popular Apple rumor Web site to shut down
Yahoo
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...
The site officially shut down on February 14, 2008, and now shows the statement "The publication ''Think Secret'' is no longer in operation." when trying to access it.
Predicted Mac Mini release
In December 2004, Think Secret published rumors of a new Mac and a new piece of word-processing software.
Apple files suit
Apple subsequently sued Think Secret editor " Nick dePlume", claiming that the site's reports violated trade secret
Trade secrets are a type of intellectual property that includes formulas, practices, processes, designs, instruments, patterns, or compilations of information that have inherent economic value because they are not generally known or readily asc ...
law. The rumors were confirmed on January 11, 2005, at Macworld
''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macint ...
in San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
when Apple's CEO Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a ...
introduced the Mac mini
Mac Mini (stylized as Mac mini) is a small form factor (desktop and motherboard), small form factor desktop computer developed and marketed by Apple Inc. , it is positioned between the consumer all-in-one iMac (Intel-based), iMac and the profes ...
and the iWork
iWork is an office suite of applications created by Apple Inc. for its macOS and iOS operating systems, and also available cross-platform through the iCloud website.
It includes the presentation application Keynote, the word processing and desk ...
productivity suite.
Editor identified
Prior to Think Secret's legal troubles, the identity of its editor was unknown outside the Mac journalism community, as he had always written under the pen-name "Nick dePlume". It was later discovered by blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
gers at Black Vortex that he was Nicholas Ciarelli.
Suit settled, site to discontinue publishing
The lawsuit with Apple was settled on December 20, 2007. The site said that, "as part of the confidential settlement, no sources were revealed and Think Secret will no longer be published."
See also
*Apple community
The Apple community is a group of people interested in Apple Inc. and its products, who report information in various media. Generally this has evolved into a proliferation of websites, but latterly has also expanded into podcasts (both audio and ...
References
{{reflist
2007 disestablishments
Macintosh websites