Macenstein

Apple’s special event invitation to the British media has the rumor community abuzz. The somewhat smaller choice of venue and cryptic invitation, reading simply “Mum is no longer the word.” have left many questions, and understandably, many people are jumping to conclusions. Most people are speculating that the announcement has to do with the iPhone making its UK debut, most likely on the O2 service, and indeed, this could be part of the announcement. However, these people are failing to remember that Apple always leaves clues to the real focus of their events, hidden away in the invitations’ text and pictures for only the most faithful to see. And it is looking like this time the fanboys have missed perhaps the most obvious clue Apple has ever dropped.

If one were to analyze the seemingly innocuous invite, composed primarily of text, one may understandably be tricked into taking the invitation at face value. However, it is in fact the text itself that Apple is taunting us with. You see, the phrase “Mum is no longer the word” is actually an anagram, and a clever one at that. If one were to rearrange the letters in that phrase, they would come up with “Ed Whelming Mourns Root”. Since that means nothing, they would then try again and come up with the more revealing:

“Lord, now the Grum is on me“.

Feeling stupid for not seeing it?

Yes, as everyone knows, Grum Redbeard is a level 55 dwarf located in the Starfall Village barrow den in the contested territory of Winterspring in the World of Warcraft.

The choice of the event’s venue is almost as obvious. Since Blizzard Entertainment, makers of the Warcraft series, were bought by French company Havas in 1998, which was subsequently bought by French company Vivendi, the London Apple store is the closest Apple venue to Vivendi’s headquarters (sorry, we don’t count the Apple store-within-a-store inside FNAC).

So there you have it. World of Warcraft coming to the iPhone, and likely the iPod touch. Apple ALMOST slipped one by us, but luckily we caught it. We’re expecting a letter from Apple’s lawyers any second now asking us to take down this post so they may attempt to recapture a small bit of the thunder we just stole from them, so spread the word!