It was thought to be a misplaced watermark, a subliminal hint at an upcoming partnership or possibly even a simple mistake. Whatever the case, online forums were abuzz today with speculation over the following image, captured from the Flash intro at Sony'sofficial PS3 site:
It flashed by almost too quickly to see, but it was visible to anyone who loaded up the site this morning. By 11:30 A.M. Pacific time, however - after forum posters had gone wild and journalists had bombarded Sony with calls - the smoke-filled Flash animation was replaced with a simpler one, and the Apple logo had disappeared.
Was it just an error, or was there some sort of secret partnership in the works between Sony's next-gen monster and the creators of the iPod? Earlier today, we speculated that Apple might be developing a PS3 version of iTunes, or that it might be collaborating with Sony on the PS3 operating system.
According to Sony, however, it was all just a misunderstanding:
"In a recent update to thePlayStation 3section of (Sony's website), an external error was made during the upload process and the Apple icon was mistakenly placed on the site," the company said in a statement this evening."We immediately fixed the problem and apologize for any confusion this may have caused."
July 7, 2006
