Prankster Admits to Fabricating Rumour of Apple EarPods with Embedded Sensors

A rumour which spread last week that Apple was working on new EarPods with biometric sensors has turned out to be a deliberate hoax. The rumour captured the attention of the world's press and made it to several prominent outlets after being posted to Secret, a new social network which allows anonymous posts. Now, the author of the original post has come forward to admit it was all a prank, designed to test the potential of the emerging social network as an outlet for comedy.

The user, identified only as DMx, claims he made the whole thing up for fun and was unaware of Apple patent filings that coincidentally indicated that the company was working on or at least exploring the potential of something very similar. He has also apologised for inadvertently tricking people into supporting his claims, believing they were genuine.

The "secret" also gained traction online thanks to recent news that Apple had hired staff specifically to work on wearable with embedded sensors, and because Apple is widely expected to jump into the wearables market with a health-tracking device. The rumour also lined up nicely with other news, such as a leak of a purported new Healthbook app in the yet-to-be-announced iOS 8.

News of Apple's supposedly impending product launch quickly spread around social networks including long discussions on Reddit. News outlets across the spectrum from daily broadsheets to tech blogs carried the story as well. Apple has long been the subject of wild speculation, and the company has long maintained a stance of refusing to comment on rumours and speculation, which means no one would have bothered trying to verify the accuracy of the leak.

Incidentally, a recent rumour posted on Secret that Nike was planning to lay off its entire Fuelband staff turned out to have been accurate, giving the report further credence.

The prankster, DMx, confessed to making it all up in a lengthy Tumblr post, in which he says, "I was sitting there doing my business thinking what today's joke would be. I take medication for ASD related stuff that can sometimes raise my blood pressure, so I was wishing I had an iPhone accessory that would measure it." He then adds, "You can get the pulse from the camera with an app, but blood pressure is another thing. I thought jokingly you could wrap the headphones around your arm and measure it that way. From that, I thought a fake iPhone rumor about it would be a funny idea."

DMx then goes on to say "This might be a little paranoid. But one thing that worries me is with this timing, if I'm close enough to the mark with my guess, is that Apple might think someone they trust is leaking stuff, and someone might get in trouble for it. I made it all up. If I'm close. It's a lucky guess. I'm not vain enough to think that Apple hired someone based on my rumor. It was likely in the pipeline for ages. But it gave false verification to the fake rumor and made things even more complicated. Some posts are even suggesting that this 'leak' is causing other manufacters to respond which sounds ridiculous. But again, fills me with fear that I might have even taken a small part in directing how Samsung spends their R&D money."