Apple Intentionally Spreading Misinformation to Employees

With the anticipated introduction of the Consumer Portable now just weeks away, Apple executives, under the order of everyone's favorite iCEO, have been going the extra mile to keep most of the project's aspects under wraps. But according to sources, they're taking a very different and unorthodox approach this time — intentionally misleading their own employees.

Just over a week ago, on the last Friday in June, Apple called what appeared to be a routine meeting of their desktop and portable engineering groups, which are now meshed into one. The company meeting, which was headed by a couple of department heads, turned out to be anything but routine, sources said.

The department heads apparently spent the first half of the meeting lecturing those in attendance about the importance of secrecy at Apple — pleading with employees to break their habit of leaking information to the press. Speaking on behalf of Steve Jobs and the new Apple regime, the Apple higher-ups attempted to prove to employees that leaks were "bad for Apple."

But what happened next was crossing the line, they said. According to sources, the second half of the meeting was a complete flip-side of the first. After finishing their secrecy lecture, department heads whipped out what appeared to be internal memos and began spilling specs for upcoming hardware projects, including the consumer portable — something they never do.

The specs were not genuine of course, but that was only obvious to those employees who were more informed than others. Some left the meeting laughing at the attempt, while others must have been puzzled. It's believed that much of the information surrounding the consumer portable that has surfaced in the past ten days is a result of these kinds of misinformation campaigns within Apple, and hence is false.

One source went as far as to say that the information that suggested the Consumer Portable was in danger of being scrapped was misinformation its self, though this has yet to be confirmed. Surely this is not the first time Apple has attempted to mislead its own in hopes of misleading the press, but we'd be lying if we told you it didn't make our job a little more interesting and a heck of lot more challenging.

Information on the Consumer Portable which we believe is the most accurate will be forthcoming in future reports.