Sunday, April 29, 2007

leak?: the toast and ham photos


The Ham Song

That's how we did it;
We did it with Ham.
Ham makes everything
Bigger and better.


Your product management lesson: This photo (and another somewhat creepy one of a long-haired, Zelda-inclined gentleman enjoying some toast) is allegedly the work of a program manager in Apple's European consumer electronics business unit. . . with an unreleased iPhone.

Provenance: the picture was posted to Flickr, found through a brute-force text search of EXIF data, reported. . . then later made private and then deleted. But not before copies had been blurted out all over the tubular inter-webs for clowns like me to find.

When it comes to Apple, you never know if it's a plant or a mistake. If it's a planned leak, it's brilliant - and we'll be talking about the Toast and Ham photos for web-years (read=weeks).

If it's unplanned. . . I sense a CLE (a TLA for career-limiting error, where TLA is three-letter acronym).

All the usual suspects are chatting about it today - slow news day, I guess, or just a sign of the semi-rabid interest in this product both pro and con.

I'm more inclined to think it's a hoax.

And now, to mow the lawn and think about Ham and Toast, Toast and Ham.

Mmmmm. . . . . ham.