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Apple iWalk: Mac OS-X based PDA?
Per Wigren noted that SpyMac claims to have pictures of the iWalk, the mysterious secret project scheduled to be announced any time now. It is apparently something between a subnotebook and a PDA running a scaled down OSX. Supposedly it can be a portable MP3 player, and it has apple's airport stuff built in. CT Nope. They announced the iPod instead, a lame MP3 player.
Hard to believe these are real, considering they had very similar pictures on just the other night that were obviously rendered (badly).
All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
they have realy nice hardware and the box is layed out like a piece of artwork. that is why.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
MacOS Rumors has some information here which details how secretive it is (under heading similar to, and along the lines of, 'non-project workers kept in dark until Monday').
...but these look fake to me. Almost definitely 3D-rendered. Maybe useful as an "artists' conception" pic, but that's not what this was touted as.
And besides, Apple already said "it's not a Mac." This looks a lot like a Mac to me, albeit a reeeeeeeeally small one.
Why are people so obsessed with the idea of Apple releasing a PDA, anyway?
I can't quite tell from the somewhat over-compressed image whether it's been doctored or not, but if this isn't the real deal, it's one of the better hoaxes I've ever seen.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The iWalk - as the new mysterious device is called that is going to be announced on Tuesday 23rd of this month - has advanced considerably over the last weeks. Previous versions spotted at the Apple campus featured firewire- and network-ports (located within a port-replicator connected to the device using what is appearantly called the "gigawire"-port) in addition to Apple's own AirPort-technology. Though AirPort was dropped a while ago due to high power consumption, it appears to be back in by now. The network-port was replaced by a standard 56k modem which allows direct access to data stored on Apple's iDisk servers.
The current version of iWalk does not appear to be ready for mass-production by now and therefore will only be announced on Tuesday 23rd but won't be out in the stores until somewhen in December (approximatly two weeks before christmas).
So what is the "iWalk"? Many people have asked that question. The iWalk is a kind of PDA with a lot more features than one could have previously expected: It features a high-color TFT-screen with handwriting recognition (using former newton-technology so it's a lot better than current palm os recognition) and direct access to both data stored on local macs (using AirPort) or on iDisk-volumes (using either routing through AirPort or the built-in modem). It has audio in- and output-ports so it can act as a usual mp3-player when connected to a stereo. The amazing feature is that mp3 files don't have to be stored locally on the device but can be streamed via AirPort from any Mac that has an AirPort-card and iTunes 2 installed which is going to be released on Tuesday as well.
This is not the only feature of iWalk though: Is has all the usual PDA-applications installed and is capable of recording speach as mp3 files using a build-in microphone. (It has built-in speakers as well but those aren't of good quality as it seems)
The operating system of this device appears to be a scaled-down version of OS X. Don't get this wrong: OS X in its current form would be painfully slow on any processor slower than a G3 but it is a modular system which appearantly allowed Apple to skip many parts of the OS that require a lot of processing power and instead concentrate on the basis functionality such a device requires. Aqua has not been implemented but instead a UI similar to the QuickTime- and iTunes-interface is used that can be controlled via touch-screen and handwriting-recognition.
Features of the current version (which is likely to be the one that is going to be announced on Tuesday) include:
TFT-Display (512x256 resolution, 65k colors)
memory of 128 MB for low-end-version, 256 MB high-end
one firewire IEE 1394 FireWire-port
one 56k MoDem
OS X (scaled-down "newtonlike"-version)
LiIon-battery (20 h / approx. 9 days standby)
One of our informers has had a chance to take a few photographs of the iWalk-device that are shown below. Click on the thumbnails to see a full- scale-image.
http://www.invisik.com
*yawn*
I'm guessing $699.
Perhaps thay don't actually USE the Macs -- notice the DELL parts bag under the pack of smokes? Maybe they actually use PCs whenever Jobs isn't looking!
load "windows7"
No matter how much you want to believe this (and believe me, I want to), you have to notice two very important things: One, that the Apple rumor world isn't mearly as accurate as it was before the reign of heir Jobs, and the most important one is that Apple has said publicly on two occasions (that come to mind) that there will be no Apple Portables aside from laptops.
I want this to be true as I still hold a candle for the lost Newton division, but I've seen these rumours before, and they've never come to fruition then either.
But then again, we never thought we'd have a Mac OS with protected memory, either, so there is a (very) slim chance, I guess. But don't hold youir breath.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Nice, it was just down again. I don't care what you have to do, ditch MySQL or whatever, but the reliability of your site is absolutely pathetic. Maybe it's time to think about using some robust closed source tools instead of this cobbled-together crap you've got going now. And you actually plan to get people to subscribe to this? Talk about delusional...
Every since the demise of the Psion Revo (Diamond Mako) I've been hoping for a company to step up and take it's place. Since no one else seems to be doing it, maybe Mac will.
From what the picture looks like, I doubt that will be what the final release looks like, it's not rounded enough for a Mac. Then there's the question, will it be PC compatible... I doubt it. What's more, it will probably require OS X... It's about time they came out with a handheld though, it's been a long time since the Newton.
I would appreciate it if the rest of you would fund R&D by buying first gen systems though.
The reall realease will be out within the day and why not just wait untell you know for sure instead of posting rumors.
Reporting on rumors is fine, they're even entertaining. However when the real device is going to be unveiled in a few hours its a bit pointless. Besides, everybody knows its going to be the iBrator!
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
Not to mention that I doubt Apple would make anything with buttons that tiny so close together.
Cheers.
"Whadda'ya watchin'?"
"Angry Monkey."
"That HORRIBLE monkey."
I am not sure but the picture on spymac seems to have been manipulated. Look at the apple logo, there is a perspective problem.
Another possibility is that the story is real and that the photo has been edited to make the device look like the retail product.
If it's a PDA, I hope it won't be too expensive so it can be a killer.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
The photo that's with the article is a fake, clever, but a fake. The perspective on the "iWalk" is all wrong when compared to the fag box and the keyboard. Also the reflected light levels are wrong on the device. I will say this though. If the device is real, i'll be buying one.
sic transit biscuitus
It's about 15 grand for a webserver license... so maybe we could get 15 thousand slashdot users to sign up for a dollar a year (that's about all I'd pay) so Rob could afford a database that's a little more robust than a flat text file...
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
The so-called iWalk is less PDA and more multimedia assistant. Rumors abound that it will serve as a airport-compatible music, video, and data (no, not personal calendar/address book).
eWeek will apparently have post-press conference coverage. (the press release for the iWalk is today at 10am PST).
The shadows on the "unit" don't seem to match those cast by the cig box right next to it.
That is the fakey-est fake picture that ever faked a fake.
~jeff
and if last time's g4 cube is any indication, we're gonna be wrong
does anybody remember the seemingly percieving comments made about the g4 cube leaked pictures last time around?
modified picture of a washing machine?
power switch pops up instead of in and vice versa?
impossibility of no fan?
obviously retouched with blur?
the slashdot community is amusing...i think it never learns
Wasn't Steve Jobs working with Amazon.com's Jeff Bestos on a "revolutionary transport" device? I doubt anything will be announced related to this today, but now is the time they said they would announce something. It is, however, "not a mac". So maybe.....
I thought Apple were meant to be the "marketeers" of the computer industry - making a fortune from selling shitty overpriced blue-Mactinosh's with limited expandability. But iTunes? iMac? iWalk?
I won't start on Compaq. iPAQ? WTF is the "i" for? Anybody?
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
Do a search on iWalk on Google and you'll find an existing product with that name. The product is one that Wired covered a while back about some kind of artificial leg. It seems unlikely that Apple would use the name of an existing product. http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,39262,00.ht ml
There were earlier pictures that have been removed now, but were easier to spot as fakes. Here is some discussion on MacNN about the "iWalk". Also note that "iWalk" is not a registered trademark of Apple.
What is an Apple trademark, though, is the "iPod" (NOTE: if you can't get the page to display, just start a new search for "iPod"). From the description, though, it does sound like a PDA...
Nice of Slashdot to finally put a story of this up... The original invitations went out last Friday!
---------The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
Apple's rabid lawyers haven't forced them to take it down yet, therefore it can't be real
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
From the story:
[H]andwriting recognition (using former newton-technology so it's a lot better than current palm os recognition)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Newton's handwriting recognition suck big time? (Even made an episode of the Simpsons, as I recall)
Hopefully, this time the public will be smart enough to recognize Apple's genius before it's too late.
Slashdot: Open Source, Closed Minds.
Why not call it the eWalk instead?
Imagine an Apple ad campaign with little furry creatures running around the forest carrying colorful translucent PDAs.
Seems like a very lightweight laptop to me... but with neither a NIC nor a HD it probably wont do that job very well...
IF it had a NIC, it could mount NFS, and that would be more cool...
Any "device" that can run a fully featured Unix with network support should be useful for some thing or some persons.
I really doubt iwalk is the final name of the device, because it's been used so many times previously for so many kinds of things. Just do a web search and you'll see. Everything from walkathons, crutches, wheelchairs, etc. They would have to pay off whoever owns the name in order to be able to use it.
in Parade Magazine in the Sunday paper of all places....
:(
It's the size and shape of a cassette, and in addition to holding 64MB of music (or files?) and working as an MP3 player with headphone jack, it'll actually play when placed in a cassette player (say in one's car---does it respond to ffwd and rwnd controls?)
Didn't trouble to look to closely since it's $230...
As much as I too would like to see an Apple PDA, I just can't see that happening given what Apple has said in the past
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
The MacNN forums (www.macnn.com ahem the most reliable) have debunked this as a doctored up Harmon Kardon amplifier and a Microsoft remote control.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
...Wireless Server/Client
Here's something related:
http://www.twomobile.com/content/771.php
http://www.sensateinc.com/
Touche! For those who missed it, here is the iBrator.
-----------------------
Moderator's essentials
I'd venture a guess that, since you are mentally retarded and incapable of conceiving a rational thought, many things are "beyond" you.
Their last PDA was the Messagepad 2100, and it cost $1199. I really doubt they will change their greedy tune. Remember, they're in Cupertino, where Hobbees restaurant charges $2 for *toast*.
The 'icing on the fake' is the box of marbs middle right and the Rorschach Ink Blot middle left.
Krispy Cream is people
It looks to me like this may be their premiere, um, issue.
If it is, that's sad. Right out of the gate they've got this ridiculous, obviously fake report. Apple will be revealing the real device today. I mean, if you're going to make something like this up, at least do it a month or more before the expected (real or not) release date.
Also, they probably wish they'd gotten some advertising before they got
If the image was just a little better, I might believe the post.
The shadow and highlights just don't jive with the cigarette package.
Sorry, I'm iWalkin' away from this one.
with handwriting recognition (using former newton-technology so it's a lot better than current palm os recognition)
LOL! First of all, the Newton sucked when it came to handwriting recognition. Second of all, the guy doesn't even seem to realize that Palm OS doesn't do handwriting recognition, it does gesture recognition with Graffiti, which is why it was successful. Palm was smart enough to know that handwriting recognition sucks and will always suck like voice recognition until we get better AI-based pattern recognition and language context theories (no, it won't be solved solely by processor speed).
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
the shadow if fine, we are not dealing w/ a parallel light source it is a point sorce close to the device, the shadow is consitant w/ a desk lamp. though a pack of cigarets inside apple offices is odd.
Well well well... yet another fake pre-released product form Apple... No really that's dumb. It really looks like a fake picture... not even the same grain on the iWalk and the rest of the picture... I won't talk about it since so many have already done so. The picture is fake.
But what kind of a source is that... the only piece of information on this site is this pseudo pre-release thing. No archives, no past news... it's really out of nowhere...
It's not like it's the first new mac preview fake we've seen. We should stop caring for those... really... especially here!
It does.
It manages to fool even people here at slashdot.
Now, look, I want an iWalk too...but this isn't going to be what Apple shows in about...umm.....20 minutes or so from my count.
Meanwhile this is just a way to attract traffic to another mac rumor site.
I loved the newton. So much better than any of the WinCE, Linux based (gasp!) or Palm units. They'd have years of development by now.
But what will be announced? It sure as hell won't be a PDA.
:-(
But I'm still taking bets for the next fifteen minutes or so. 10 to 1 odds.
I remember when the Mac cube early-release pics came out people were saying the exact same things...analyzing the shadows, glare, etc. In the end, as bizarre as they looked, they were real!
Newton.
Go Apple!
Look at the picture. It looks kinda doctored to begin with, but check out the shadows. One perfect shadow in one direction in what looks like a multi flourescent lit area. It doesn't even match up to the cigarette box's shadow. Bogus.
Not saying it isn't going to look like that, but that picture is definitely fake.
And WTF is with the Dell (eww) logo?
SIGFEH
Oh wait... this is a mac rumors site, the iWalk may not exist.
Hmmmm... The actual book looks fake, and it is sitting on the table at a truly odd tilt / angle. Also look around the picture, on the table is some Dell letterhead, a pack of Marlboros and a smeared copy. This isn't Apple HQ or a project lab but someones house (prob spymac's webmasters desk!) If it is real (not likely) then it is at someones house - that means an engineer who is able to take it home. If I was able to take home a secret work project, I wouldn't release pictures on the internet and have my PHB find them.
On the technical side look at the shadow for the Iwalk (alleged) it falls to the upper left of the Iwalk, however, no similar shadow falls on the marlboros. Also, light is reflecting off of the celophane wrapper on the cigarettes to the upper left. This would point that the light source of the picture was coming from the upper left, but the shadow placement on the Iwalk contradicts that. Also, under magnification there are pixels that border the Iwalk that are whiter then the surronding table. I would say a good 3D render, but it is a fake
Besides, YOU KNOW Mac's PDA will be translucent pink, or paisley or some shit like that!!
--cgeek--
Jesse Wolfe Sr. Manager Systems Integration
You can clearly tell this image is a rendering, due to the fact of how it reflects its inviroment. Everything in the image has a pink or rose hue in the whites and hightlights, either from the light or some other red hue object in the room. The "iWalk" does not, it maintains its pure gray color.
Next time ask yourself first, does it reflect its surroundings. This is the easiest way to pick a rendering out.
...I'd be all over it. If not, it's cute, but, well, cute.
Attention all PDA and phone manufacturers: we are sick and tired of carrying around a PDA and a phone. Got it? Put them together, preferably in a form smaller and lighter than a small boulder, and priced not too much higher than the two things separately. You'll be rich.
If Apple could stick a phone into a sexy Apple OSX-based PDA that I could plug into my mac, they'd have another pile of my money double-quick, that's for sure. The more M$ scares me with their Big Brother plans, the more I'm dying to lock into something else. C'mon Apple, give me some hope.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
It has more than one button...
The Surgeon General says sigs are bad for me.
I would think 802.11 would use too much power.
Invented? Perfected? Improved for useability, perhaps, but not invented. Its funny, all the apple history books and the wozniak (sp?) speeches seem to forget ibm and xerox and the other minicomputer and pc makers of those times.
I can't believe that Apple would do a pre-release of this device. They were not even telling their own employees not directly involved!
The picture looks pretty fake too. It looks a lot like the first Windows CE PDA's.
The handwriting recognition was absolutely SUPERB. At least on the one I used.
Sure.. it made mistakes at first. But you have to tell it about the mistakes... and pretty soon the little newton can regocnize my handwriting even when I couldn't!
I was absolutely amazed at how well the handwriting recognition on it worked.
The Apple logo is the wrong way up. Apple stopped doing that a few years ago.
The apple logo is the wrong way up. Apple stopped doing that a couple years ago.
The apple should be upright when the screen is open, not upside down.
And look at the shadows coming from the cigarette box. They don't match up, do they? :)
:)
There seems to be two light sources. One immediately above and behind the photographer, like a florescent ceiling light, which is evidenced by the reflection on the keyboard. The other source appears to be an regular incandescent also behind the viewer, casting shadows on the cigarettes that goes up. The shadow from the iWalk device is going to the upper left. They just don't seem consistent. There's also a *very* faint shadow leaning *towards* the photographer. Also notice the wrinkles on the sheet of paper beneath the iWalk. The shadows cast by them are also going "up", like from the cigarette box. Funny how it's the only object in the scene that casts light in its own unique direction. Light also does not seem to fall naturally on the device itself.
A few other observations I noticed... Zoom in close on the image. Other objects in the scene are slightly more crisp than the device itself.
Maybe I'm wrong, but the scene just looks very unnatural, but this may only be become I'm looking at it so intently. But if you ask me, that is definitely a mock up.
Why bother.
Phony picture, or Marlbrough has come out with super-sized cigs.
the only reason i stopped using it was the fact that apple was discontinuing the product line. way ahead of the curve, but an osx base could be very cool. accessing pine via a wireless connection will be quite cool.
Before you groan about using Newton's handwriting recognition technology, give it a try on a recent (2.0x OS) Message pad. I still use my Newton MP 2100 daily, and the handwriting recognition is darn near 99% accurate, given that it adapts to your style over time. Impressive stuff -- too bad the earlier hwr got such a bad rap. I'd be glad to see this technology in use on any future Apple product.
Yes you can tell it's fake by the picture....But the biggest givaway is the statement that says it will be available by Christmas. When was the last time something from a major tech company went from prototype leakage to the street in 3 months time. Get real people.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Notice the direction, softness, and darkness of the shadow cast by the "iWalk" compared to other items on the desk, such as the package of cigarettes.
It is not the same direction, not the same 'hardness' (soft edges) and not the same darkess as the other shadows.
Furthurmore, the camera flash creates a harsh bright spot on surfaces of the keyboard, but on the iWalk. Why? Because it's fake.
...just my 0.02
Did anyone else notice the Dell napkin looking thing under the cigarette box? I think this is a hoax. Wait an hour and find out what it really is.
today is spelling optional day.
I'm sure a few of you are running OSX, how is it? What is your opinion on how successful a scale-down would be? Would it be better to try and scale down the whole thing, or maybe just the key parts of it, like the kernel, and build the rest from scratch maybe using the OSX GUI as a guideline? And is it really worthwile for Apple to throw resources at something like this?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
This is sooooo fake I don't even know where to begin. I remember seeing photos of these japanese pda's like three years ago.
iWalk? C'mon, guys, pull your collective heads out of your collected @$$es.
before US robotics / palm ever made a palm-pilot,
they made grafitti FOR the newton. that's where
it started.
Apart from the shadow issues:
--It's impossible for me to believe that an Apple designer would allow the atrocious kerning between the i and the W. We're talking about Apple, after all, and I really think they would change the name rather than let the i's dot bump into the W.
--It's also really, really hard to believe that the physical buttons wouldn't be aquafied.
Still, I haven't replaced my Palm Pilot since I broke it, but I would buy an airport-enabled, OS X-based PDA in a second, at any cost, even if I need to sell my grandma's oxygen tank to do it.
I was the proud owner of a Sharp Wizard long before the Newton ever arived.
Steve Jobs is cashing in on the only profitable sector of the Internet, pr0n. Check out the secret testing labs for Apple's new product, "iBrator". Their Chief of Product Quality and Testing, Lisa Catherine Clark, discusses the features and benefits of the "iBrator" here.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I understand this hoax has been exposed- but one cant help but notice that "iWalk" in not in the Apple Garramond font that has graced all apple products since the orginal mac (at least mac and mac related stuff- and the latter apple II line). It's close- but it ain't right.
The website is registered to Ehlis Design in Germany. If you visit their website http://www.ehlis-design.de/index2.html you'll see other fake Apple products.
Notice that this is the ONLY thing on their site? The paint is still drying on this site, and with no prior content, they are offering to sell ad space already?
Perhaps they anticipated the Slashdotting, so they'd cash in on the deal by offering to sell ad space in conjunction with said fake product(notice the shadow lines on the lower 1/5th of the image) to give the illusion of a big tech gossip site.
Nope, not buying it.
Sorry for the sort of offtopic question (it's inspired by the fact that, if this story is true, there's yet another PDA OS in the works): I've been thinking about getting into PDA development, and I was wondering if there was, at the moment, any sort of cross-platform WORA way of going about things? That way if somebody had an OSX-driven PDA, or a Palm, or one of those Linux ones, you wouldn't need to rewrite the ap for each one... If there's nothing for it yet, has there been any discussion on it between the various PDA companies?
Just curious.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
You've got the right idea, but that was for another picture. This is a different one.
Still probably fake, though.
that is a 3d rendered image placed in there. the shadow is all wrong.
...cant be faked! Just ask the tourist guy
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
Quick tidbits:
This product has had the mac world biting their nails for the past week or so.
Two of the most popular mac news sources, MacSlash and MacOS Rumors, are currently down, and MacNN has been slowed to a crawl.
The official announcement from apple is expected to happen at 10:00AM PST.
(1) The "spy photos" are clearly faked.
(2) The real answer will be released shortly, after Apple finishes the closed-door presentation in Cupertino, CA (10.00 pdt, 13.00 edt).
(3) The world already has PDA-phone hybrids, even if they are no good.
Did I miss anything?
Ignoring the picture itself (where the shadows and reflection and textures look very suspect), this site itself shows every sign of being set up within the past two days or so. They say they've been "down for the past few weeks" and have no news in their archives. Google has absolutely no mention anywhere of a site or a link to a site called "Spymac" or "spymac.com" and has no archive or cache of their website or 'previous website' in any form. The file creation dates in their graphics directory are either today or yesterday. Their contact page claims that they get 'usually get a lot of mail' -- a lofty claim for a website that, before today, wasn't known by anyone in the world (according to Google). Their first paragraph seems to allude to the 'iWalk' being covered previously on their site, too, which is another persuasion of trust.
This thing screams 'fake'. Ignore it.
Just noticed that the Apple E-Store went off line at 12:57pm. Looks like their updating it with new content.
Well, I think the iWalk is bunk. It's 12:00 and the Apple Store is down.
How many people use photoshop to get images from their digital camera?
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Check the specs!
- The new device will serve as a bridge between your home TV/stereo
and your Mac. It will do all the work of a non-portable MP3 player,
DVD player, VCR, and maybe a gaming console.
- The digital hub should connect to your TV and stereo via standard
audio/video input and output. It connects to a Mac via firewire,
Ethernet, or airport (802.11). There should also be also a two-way
remote control for the device as well.
- The new device should allow a Mac to read and write video/audio from
a home TV/stereo. This allows the device to serve MP3 audio from
the Mac's harddrive, play quicktime video on the TV (including
iMovie created video), record and play back TV similar to the TiVo,
use it to play Internet-multiplayer games on your TV, and display
your digital pictures on the TV. I believe the system would even
allow the Mac to display a DVD from its drive on to the TV as well.
In addition, if you have a VCR, you can use the device to import VHS
home video into iMovie.
- Now, let's look at the hardware. All the box needs to be able to do
is encode and decode digitalaudio and maybe perform some
lightweight compression/de-compression. The box has an embedded
(slow & cheap) version of a PowerPC in it. The box has some amount
of DRAM, but no hard drive, since it can just use the Mac's hard
drive. It has just enough flash memory to net-boot from the
connected Mac. What operating system does the device run? Well,
Darwin, of course! Since the digital hub device boots from the Mac,
it has almost no hard state, and thus the software can be upgraded
by installing new software on the Mac.
- The above description is actually quite similar to many of the
hardware firewall devices that use an embedding chip and Linux or
*BSD. You can buy these for under $100. Apple's new device would
needs to add a little bit of support for encoding and decoding, but
I would guess the final street price of the device would be under
$200.
- The biggest challenge with this device would providing enough
bandwidth to send TV quality video between the two systems. Apple's
wireless has 11 Mbs, or ~1MB/second bandwidth max. DVDs hold ~5 GBs
of data for ~2 hours of viewing. That's ~0.7MB/second for the
compressed stream. It should be pretty easy to downgrade the signal
from DVD quality to a TV quality signal, compress it a bit, and send
it from the Mac to the Hub staying well below the 1MB/second
bandwidth limit.
- Clearly, this new device will take full advantage of Mac OS
X/Darwin. Darwin will be running on the hub, and Mac OS X's
stability and multitasking support is needed to run the digital hub
in the background. In fact, multiple processors would work nicely
for this application...
- There have been rumors that Nintendo and Apple might be teaming up.
This would be the perfect opportunity for Nintendo to avoid fighting
against the XBox and the PlayStation.
With this move, Apple could take control of the home entertainment system. Maybe Apple will just release some new portable MP3 player, but I don't think so...spymac.com was registered two months ago to Holger Ehlis of Ehlis Design. He clearly has experience and desire in producing 3D renderings of speculative Apple hardware. Based upon this, combined with the fact that Apple has so effectively clamped down on leakage of pretty much ANYTHING within the past six-eight months and I'd say this is almost assuredly a fake.
They claim to have been down for two weeks due to "ISP problems", implying that they were up previous to that, but searching on google for "site:spymac.com news" yields zilch.
Just some sad people with more time than sense.
--
Give me a cheap wireless web pad ! NOW !
I don't even care if it's from ( only Open-ish Source ) Apple.
The press converence is starting right now in cupertino..
anyone knows where to get up to date info????
Amen, brother !!!
I am sick-and-tired of CrApple Apologists claiming that the divine Jobs and CrApple invented all computer technology, toe cheese, and sliced bread. It's smacks of the old Russian Communerds who claimed they invented everything from combustion engines to typewriters.
Apple has suspended their online store for the moment. Looks like whatever they announce will be available for purchase today!
There is no gravity...the earth just sucks.
Doubtful that they will be shipping for some time. Announcement in time for the Christmas season.... you can put the little Backorder Status Statement in someone's stocking.
The main reason this has to be a fake is that the Apple Logo is not facing the right way. All new Apple items with a lid (the iBook and TiBook) have the logo facing to where it's pointing the right way when the lid is up.
--
CPAN rules. - Guido van Rossum
Yeah, we all agree, this picture is fake.
Maybe it's a real product though. I would hope. Looks great....idea is great.
3D rendering would then be great but not shadows.
If Apple release THIS product, I'll buy it if it's under 500$.
Will I need a mac though?
If also it was a scalled down OS X, apple will need to provide a dev kit.
Apple could also license their scalled down version to other palm like companies....but they won't do that as we all know.
Anyway, would be a gread product.
We want to see a newton like product again.
It's an iPod, $399. That's all I know. Check the Apple Developer store.
MacNN/MacSlash/MOSR are down, but we still have MacMinute.
"MacMinute is in attendance at the media event and will bring the news as we learn of it."
And it looks like in the time it took me to type this post, the action has already started:
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is currently recapping Apple's digital hub products, including iTunes, iMovie 2, iDVD, and Mac OS X's Image Capture application. [October 23 - 13:10-13:20]
Hell yeah! It was just announced! (from MacMinute):
Apple introduces iPod, a digital audio player (MP3, MP2) with a 5GB hard drive (1000 songs). 20 minute skip protection. [13:25]
The new is in. Apple introduces iPod, an MP3 player with a hard drive. Big freaking deal, I already have one, its called an Archos jukebox 6000.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Looks like some kind of MP3 player called the "iPod." FireWire equipped, a 5-gig hard drive, etc, etc, etc.
To be honest, thus far I'm disappointed. This is what Apple calls "breakthrough"?
Live coverage of the conference is at MacMinute (but they'll get swamped soon enough...)
It's insulting that someone, anyone would release a crappy fake picture like that and try to insist that it's a real device.
It's an annoying picture, because the objects in the foreground, the supposed object of interest is in soft focus, while the stuff in the background is crisp and clean. Tell me, is this person's digital camera so bad that it can't take a picture of three objects in close proximity without all three of them in focus? Please.
Another thing that makes this stand out on the bullshit alarm is that it is NOTHING like the real leaked pictures that people release of new products. Usually, when people take pictures of new products, they're as technical as possible, lining up the device like they were in a studio showing the device open, closed, any neat features, and most importantly, what the screen and OS look like.
This crappy fake looks as though it was from the background of that crappy Hackers Movie with Angelina Jolie. You don't expect us to believe for a second that this picture was an accident, taken by someone who didn't even realize what they were taking a picture of, do you? What an insult.
The third, most damning piece of evidence I enter into the fold is the crappy lighting and texture effects the moron who made this used. What the hell kind of surface is that on the device? Granite? Some space-aged material? It doesn't reflect light, like the laptop in the background. It's obviously textured. Is it Olsonite, or some other space age material? I think its Fakelite.
My final point: look at the shadow on the pack of cigarettes. It casts a faint shadow away from the camera, what you'd expect from flash photography. Now, look at the shadow of the fake device. It casts a harsher shadow to the left, as though there was a strong light source to the right of the person taking the picture. Where's the shadow from that light source for the pack of cigarettes? It's got to be a powerful light source, because it was bright enough that the flash wasn't able to drown out its shadows.
This picture is a total fake and an insult to our collective intelligence.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
To me, it looks like a libretto that has been doctored.
---gralem
There was someone "in the know" that swore up and down the cube was a hoax. The lighting was all wrong, it didn't make sense, etc.
;)
Not that I care, as this will likely be a similar flop, but I'll wait for the announcement.
I almost wish it was that fake device over at the Spymac. seems like ipod is nothing except a huge ass mp3 player with firewire. Creative Jukebox anyone???
kawai
Straight from macminute.com
Apple introduces iPod, a digital audio player (MP3, MP2, more) with a 5GB hard drive (1000 songs). 20 minute skip protection. FireWire-equipped, first such music player. 10 hour battery, lithium-polymar ("most advanced battery; more advanced than laptop batteries"), takes 1 hour to charge. Size of a deck of cards: 2.4" wide, 4" tall, 3/4" thick
Who's the first to say "boring"?
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
Well, what do you know? The product actually is an iPod, an MP3 jukebox. macminute.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
Apple didn't invent the PDA. There were many experimental PDAs produced at the time of the Newton and before. HP's calculators had been PDAs for uber-geeks for some time.
Indeed -- A very popular early PDA was a handheld PC XT-compatible from HP. Had DOS, Lotus 123 and Lotus Organizer in ROM, and could emulate the calculator functions. Tiny keyboard instead of pen-input, but IMO, that's actually better for 'real work' type applications.
The Apple Store
The Apple Home Page
The iPod Product Page
iPod is the size of a deck of cards. 2.4" wide by 4" tall by
* One hour recharge, 10 hour battery capacity charges over FireWire -- no charging cable needed
* 20 minute skip protection FireWire built-in. fast -- entire CD download in under 10 seconds
* "To have your whole music library with you at all times is a quantum leap when it comes to music. And iPod fits in your pocket. Never before possible."
3 breakthroughs in iPod: 1. Ultra-portable. Ultra-thin hard drive. 1.8 inch hard drive is
* MP3 (incl. VBR), WAV, and AIFF playback. Holds 1000 songs.
* Music players: flash (MP3) player, hard disk player, CD player, MP3 CD player
Apple's new device is a hard drive-based music player: iPod.
* It's a part of everyone's life. It's a large target market. It knows now boundaries. And there is no market leader.
No one has really found the recipe yet for digital music. And not only will we find the recipe, we think the Apple brand is great for this.
* We are executing on this stuff today. Nine months from having a strategy, and we're basically shipping all of it -- iDVD will ship early next month.
iApps know all about the devices. But a thought occurred to us late last year -- the devices don't know anything about the iApps. There's never been a device built to take advantage... what if there was?
And we decided to do it.
The field we chose was music.
Why music? Well, we love music. and it's always good to do something you love.
* Jobs demos iMovie -- showed clips of baby videos
* iDVD2 shipping early November
* Jobs then showed a four-piece pie chart: video (iMovie 2), Music (iTunes), DVD (iDVD), and Photo
* Let's start with the digital hub. This is a strategy we announced in January 2001. We believe Mac can become the center of your digital lifestyle. In other words, we're being surrounded by these amazing digital devices these days.
* We have something really stunning for you today -- we have a lot of things going on.
* Steve Jobs comes onstage:
Don'tcha just know I gotta add this to my collection!
Curious George
***General Consultant to the Human Race*** My opinions are free. You get what you pay for.
MacMinute is at the event, covering it live. It's called the iPod, and it's an MP3 player.
Several news (not rumor) sites are claiming that Apple has announced the "iPod", a sort of mp3 player with HD...
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
MacCentral iPod Unveiling
.2" thick 5GB HD encased in a FireWire box, plays MP3s, fits in your pocket, and actually integrates with the Jukebox software (read iTunes)
;)
Essentially its a 1.8"
I'm hoping it has airport
Transfer a full CD in 10 seconds.
---
Live Long & Prosper \\//_
CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
Jedi & Last *-fytr
Jobs is annoucing the iPod, an .mp3 media player with a 5-gig hard drive, Firewire, etc. Has a very cool polumer battery.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
MacCentral coverage of the iPod. It is basically an ultrathin mp3 player. Here are the specs...
.78" thick 6.5 ounces
.2 inches thick. 5 Gigabytes. 1000 songs at 160K bit rate.
* Apple design -- stainless steel also a FireWire hard drive
* iPod is the size of a deck of cards. 2.4" wide by 4" tall by
* One hour recharge, 10 hour battery capacity charges over FireWire -- no charging cable needed
* 20 minute skip protection FireWire built-in. fast -- entire CD download in under 10 seconds
* "To have your whole music library with you at all times is a quantum leap when it comes to music. And iPod fits in your pocket. Never before possible."
* 3 breakthroughs in iPod: 1. Ultra-portable. Ultra-thin hard drive. 1.8 inch hard drive is
Looks like the folks at CBS MarketWatch are so quick to get the news out that they issued a press released based almost entirely on spymac.com's faked photos and 'sources'.
This
article really makes me want to follow CBS's investment advice.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
iPod introduced: audio, MP3 player
Apple's special event began slightly after its 10:00 am anticipated start time with Steve Jobs recapping Apple's digital hub vision. Jobs then introduced the iPod, a digital audio player with a 5GB drive, 20-minute skip protection, a FireWire port, and a Li-polymer battery (up to 10 hours; fully charges in just over an hour).
http://www.macminute.com/
Its called iPod, its an mp3 player, done up in apple style of course.
-ecc
I can't get through to just about any Mac info site right now, but here's what I managed to sneak off MacNN before it got hosed again:
Apple's special event began slightly after its 10:00 am anticipated start time with Steve Jobs recapping Apple's digital hub vision. Jobs then introduced the iPod, a digital audio player with a 5GB drive, 20-minute skip protection, a FireWire port, and an advanced Lithium-polymer battery with up to 10 hours (and fully charges in just over an hour). The portable device is the about the "size of a deck of cards," with a backlit LCD display, and offers support for playlists, ID3 tags, and iTunes. The portable device fits in the palm of your hand (about the size of a credit card and less than an inch high), has a backlit LCD display, and offers support for playlists, ID3 tags, and iTunes.
No price info, though. I'm sure we'll see more later.
(apologies if someone else has already gotten this info into the discussion...)
because it runs Mac OS, how are you going to synch (it still kinda is a PDA !) to a PC which most lusers have? I'm not buying a I-mac just to synch my PDA. I also thing it's a fake, the shadow on the left side is much burrier than the sigarettepack's shadow. Also the angle of the table doesn't seem to match the one in whick the device is rendered, it looks a bit like the device in bent upwards so it's right half is clear from the table.
Kycera 6035. It's a PalmOS 3.5 based dude. The sweet part is that it can function as a full wireless modem for itself standing alone or for another computer connected via serial cable to it's palm cradle. Verison let's you use CDMA calling at not extra fee (your minuets are used like it's a normal call). Plus, since it's a PalmOS based device, you don't have to deal with watered down, propriatarily controlled HDML sites..you have a full HTML browser (well, as full as it is on the Palm V) with an independent modem link to whatever dialup ISP you have.
a q.htm
Cons are that you now have a cell phone that is prone to crashes and it's a tad bulky (yet smaller than a full-sized Palm Pilot).
http://www.kyocera-wireless.com/kysmart/kysmart_f
- Sig
Apparently apple is releasing (no joke) an MP3 player. Runs over firewire (even recharges that way!) 5 gig ultra-tiny drive, the whole thing is the size of a deck of cards. Stainless steel construction.
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0110/23.event. php
No pictures yet, unfortunately.
It's up now.
Have a look
***General Consultant to the Human Race*** My opinions are free. You get what you pay for.
Don't we already have enough mp3 players out there?
I can't seem to understand why they would make something new that nobody has seen before.....
Is this 2001?
Did apple really just do that?
Microsoft's version of sprituality:
"Double-click the lifestone to attune your spirit to the lifestone"
See it here
There is no way that could be real. I would have thought that they would ban any Dell Materials at their campus. Dell??? That's right look at the reciept under the pack of cigarettes.
Personally I think it is a Dell plot to further disappoint ex-Newton owners like myself.
Well, Here it is.
Holds 1000 songs
Weighs 6.5 oz
10 hour play time with skip protection
uses fire wire to charge and transfer
nice scroll wheel for interface
5 gig hard drive that doubles as a firwire drive
Yipee
Just released: .78 in.)
. php
The size of a deck of cards (2.4 x 4 x
* 5gB HDD
* 10 hour bttery life
* 20 min skip protection
* COOL ASS intigration with iTunes2
* crossfader: automatically fades between songs. new equalizer button next to burn and eject buttons, with presets, 10 sliders plus a preamp slider
* built-in. fast -- entire CD download in under 10 seconds
* If you add songs or re-arrange playlists, iPod automatically updates
see: http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0110/23.event
see: http://www.macnn.com/news.php?id=10182
http://kered.org
What are you waiting for? Goto the Apple Store.
MacCentral coverage
The Apple Store
pretty neat stuff
"Stuff... In my home!? NEVER!" - Zim on Invader Zim
"I want the toilet seat!" - Little Dog on Two Stupid Dogs
Those talking about shadows not matching up are very stupid and ignoring the fact that a normal room contains a varied mix of ambient, omni, and spot lighting.
Those talking about a foldable PDA are wrong. How many times does Jobs have to tell you he wants the Mac and Apple to be at the center of the digital nerve center. It's media.
Media. Media. Media. Media. Media. Media.
http://www.apple.com/ipod/
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." -- Tennyson
iPod:
- Holds over 1000 songs
- Weights just 6.5 ounces -- fits in your pocket
- Plays up to 10 hours with 20 minutes skip protection
- Auto synchronize all your music with iTunes
- Transfer a whole CD is less than 10 seconds
- Charge with the included power adapter or over FireWire
- Breakthrough UI with an innovative scroll wheel
- 60 mWatt amp powers high-fidelity sound earbuds
- Ultra-slim 5-gigabyte hard drive doubles as a FireWire disk
Price $399
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
The "we'll be back' sign has returned. Premature store opening I suppose since the rest of the site is without info on the iPod at this time.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
just go to apple.com to see the new device
Get it together /. !!!
Apple has just announced the iPod and its right on the front of their site now... Its a 5Gb MP3 player...
Do I need some kind of crap and repeat filter on this site now?
I've found one little feature of this device that might actually convince me to get one. It's got a rather fast read and write speed, and it can hold things other than mp3s... which means it's a really, really small portable 5GB firewire HD, and I actually need one of those for transfering large software projects from mac to mac without dying over the DSL line... broadband is OK, but it's not fast networking. Given how long and tedious it is to burn three CDs with the latest version of the project, or to do reliable diffing across the whole thing, and the fact that this is more portable than the CDs... and add the bonus of having the music, and I might go for it.
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
Apple did come out today with the iPod and it is on there website here [apple.com]
See http://www.apple.com/ipod/
An MP3 player with a 5GB hard disk, FireWire, and good Mac integration.
Go to www.macnn.com its called the iPod and its not a pda, just a fireware based drive/mp3 player, also doesn't look like that picture either. Go to apple.com too and you can get more info.
What's Apple doing with Dell stationary?
http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/ipod/
Apple has it available now. Looks like an impressive device, but at $399, I'm in no hurry to replace my Intel PocketConcert (even though Intel isn't supporting it anymore)
- 5-gig disk
- 10-hr battery
- firewire to sync with iTunes 2 on a host mac
- ability to recharge over firewire as well as with AC adapter
- iTunes-like interface for exploring your MP3 library
... organized by artist, song, or playlist
- 20-minute skip protection
- $399 price tag
- a web page: http://www.apple.com/ipod/
all in all, not the breakthrough apple was hyping, but certainly a damn fine mp3 player (which it better be for the money).I remember that one! I thought it was kind of cute to have a PC in the palm of your hand. People even got Windows working on later models.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Looks like a trial balloon product. If the acceptance is reasonable then I'd place a bet on a version that has Airport built in. That one would also get email from itools and such as well as suck music. I'm surprised there's no remote for it.
I see a whole family of appliances. One for digital video as well as audio (really, just the same with a bigger hdd, a remote control, airport/ethernet, and DV out) that uses NFS or http to get stuff from iTools or your home mac.
That would be cool. But that's not what we got today.
They're doing exactly what you want, and it's much cooler than PalmOS.
CT: nope, instead i'm releasing slashdot, where a product is immediatly lame if it does not work with my viral-licensed kernel of choice.
Not to be insulting or anything, but what kind of dumbass posts such a poor and obviously fake rumor hours before the actual release? I hope this will teach you a lesson and only report facts rather then rumor.
Check the highlight on keyboard(just below the left fruit button), the shadow coming from "top" of the PDA is just not possible(not if there is enough light on the keyboard to create the highlight). And the fuzzieness of the edges of the obj is from the antialiasing, maybe even smoothing. Looks like a LW rendering ) (not maya, we wouldnt have noticed, and not max.. it would have been very very obvious)
Has anybody actually tried to use a PDA whilst walking? Not the easiest thing to do.
I agree.
My favorite line from Hackers:
"It's a PowerPC processor... the PCI bus makes it four times as fast as even a Pentium!"
This fake is almost as insulting as the $399.00 price tag on the iPod. Cripes, you can get a 20-gig model of the same thing for less money!
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
I hear apple has also just announced their new vacuum cleaner product, the "iSuck"!
It's only a model.
"They announced the iPod instead, a lame MP3 player."
The iPod is not a PDA, but it probably is the best all-around MP3 player on the market, and certainly the best size/storage space ratio.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas