The entertainment value is high, especially now that, in the Jobs era, you can't pry info out of Apple with a crowbar. One provocative rumor concerns an Apple-branded palmtop. But Mac rumor sites are in the business of selling ads. And ads sell only if the sites have visitors. As a result, that completely illogical Apple-Palm rumor got repeated all over the Web, where it still circulates today.
Logic still applies.
Apple said it was working on a consumer laptop but wouldn't release a single further detail. Rumors rise to the top. One of the silliest rumors of the summer was that, because of technical glitches, Apple had decided to cancel the iBook only 30 days before its release. Less than 30 days later, Apple showed 100 fully working iBooks at Macworld Expo, to great acclaim. You'd think that Macworld's own sister publication would be smart enough to smell a rat.