Posted by
michael
on from the we-love-the-leader dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Pictures of what would appear to be Apple's forthcoming PDA, the "iWalk" have slipped onto the net, and this time they don't seem fake, as evidenced by the quicktime movies also included. Those interested can check out the pictures here, apparently courtesy of SpyMac."
There's a good chance it's fake...
by
Electric+Angst
·
· Score: 5, Informative
This comment on MacSlash has a big list of possibly problems with the "evidence" for the iWalk. (Hell, someone's gonna get a five for posting this, might as well be me.)
-- Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
Only a few more days...
by
bjb
·
· Score: 2, Informative
It will be interesting to see what Apple has in store for us on Monday at the Mac Expo. Apparently the rumor mill has been reporting the large purchase of flat panel displays by Apple (read: flat panel iMac?), a large purchasing of G5 chips (read: faster boxen) and the recent trademarking of the term "GigaWire" (new FireWire standard?).
As for the G5 chips, Apple seems to like to offer 3 speeds of processor. Supposedly Apple will offer 1.2, 1.5 and 1.8GHz speeds. If the production of 1.8 chips doesn't work out very well, then they might make the 1.5 the high end and make a 1.0 the low end.
Still, whatever comes out is my next computer purchase:-)
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Re:Apple started the PDA
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Wrong - Apples did work - but it worked with natural handwriting
Xerox patent was for an non-human sort of handwriting - when a human had to adopt to the PDA .
Btw, Graffitti from Palm started its life on Newton;-)
It comes from SpyMac.com
by
Trajan's+Horse
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· Score: 5, Informative
the same folks who had a mockup picture of the 'iWalk' back in October. These guys lack all credibility in my book, and were very clever back then at getting the Apple community all excited. Even Slashdot reported it in October. Check out their archives on http://www.spymac.com on and around October 23rd for the first run at this hoax.
Seems likely to be a fake
by
sg3000
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I agree that it seems to be a fake. In the iWalk_Still10.jpg, it shows the Apple logo on the job wheel, something that looks kind of retarded. If look at an iPod, it's clear that their industrial design goes for more of an understated look -- for example, there is no Apple logo on the front of an iPod. In fact, I'd expect an Apple PDA today to look more like an iPod.
The screen looks kind of odd in that shot, too. it looks like the scroll bar on the right doesn't quite line up with the tool bar on the bottom. I'd also expect the UI to look more like Aqua.
If this thing plays MP3s, Apple will be canabalizing sales from their successful iPod. They've been pretty good about marketing recently, and I'd be surprised if they pulled an obvious blunder like that (particularly since they're still stinging from the poor marketing they did with the overpriced Cube).
Finally, if I understand correctly, Steve Jobs hated the Newton. I believe he called it a "damn scribble toy" before he killed it a few years ago. It would be odd for him to resurrect it.
In short, I think this is likely another hoax.
-- Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Re:Apple started the PDA
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
Spoken by someone who's never used a 2.0 Newton.
The writing recognition on the first Newtons (100, 110) did suck. Later ones using the 2.0 OS had good recognition, at least as good as Pocket PCs today.
Re:Apple started the PDA
by
Quixote
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Oh yeah, Apple's handwriting recognition software didn't work.
Newton's Handwriting recognition (HWR) software was done by a Russian company called Parasoft (now known as Parascript, and based in CO).
The Newton was waay ahead of its time. For one, it didn't have the processing power required to do great handwriting recognition. Given today's embedded CPUs, I would not be surprised to see some really good HWR stuff in this (rumored?) PDA.
Newton HWR kicks ass
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
The earlier Newtons HWR wasn't that great. Starting with the Newton 110, and specificaly the Newton 2000 and 2100,the HWR software known as Rosetta kicked(and still kicks) major ass. Combined with the palm rejection characteristics of the Newton's touch screen, it is still far more useable than even todays top-off-the line PocketPC running Calligrapher. This is based on ownership, not guesses.
"Maybe they'll make Slashdot again..."
by
The_Messenger
·
· Score: 1, Informative
Why make a hoax? Like I said, this feeds egos. Look, we're all idiots, talking about their fake Apple product. Maybe they'll make Slashdot again. In addition, they want ads. Visitors attract advertisers.
LOL...:-) Indeed.
--
-- I like to watch.
Re:Apple started the PDA
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
Paragraph made the CURSIVE recognizer on the messagepads. Apple made the Rosetta print recognizer, that was far superior to that early Paragraph recognizer. Newton OS 2.x Rosetta recognizer is still today the best HWR engine in existence (unless of course it has even been improved within Apple).
Early Newton HWR was very weak. I own a MP130 and had a MP2000 and can tell you that the latest Calligrapher (better than Transcriber) on today's PocketPC's do not surpass Rosetta as it exists on my MP130.
blake@blakespot.com --- http://www.ipodhacks.com
Re:Apple started the PDA
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
For one, it didn't have the processing power required to do great handwriting recognition. Given today's embedded CPUs, I would not be surprised to see some really good HWR stuff in this (rumored?) PDA
Re:Did someone hire Sculley back?
by
coolgeek
·
· Score: 3, Informative
And then there was WebObjects (or whatever the heck it was called) that we bought for a nice chunk of change that never really worked and finally got abandoned
Seems to work pretty well, too... Apple Store and iTools run on it everyday. At least, I believe what the.woa in the URLs means.
--
cat/dev/null >sig
Video Compression
by
Frobozz0
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Some people have been saying the video is fake because certain portions are not "moving" with other elements. While I am just as skeptical as others it is important to note how temporal compression works in video codecs. Essentially, areas that do not change location or value by enough, based on a given threshold or compression rate, will not change. In general, this is done in square chunks. So if that text is small enough and not moving enough, it will not move in the movie-- thus saving space in the movie size by not changing redundant pixels. The reason why the outside may be moving is because it's larger on screen and has a higher contrast between the edges... and may lie on the "box" edges of the compression codec.
Then again, it could be a fancy video editing trick. I saw the videos and it appears strange why the clip the video's when they do. If they wanted to make a stronger case they would have longer clips and continuous UI change. It could be a series of composites...
-- "Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
AtAT has good analysis
by
geddes
·
· Score: 1, Informative
The thing they reminded me of is that SpyMac also released photos of the "iWalk" the day before the iPod was announced - and today's photos are completely different. The whole analysis is good - it's todays first scene at As the Apple Turns - They also did a frame by frame analysis of the Spymac video footage and found inconsistencies.
THIS MUST BE FAKE. LOOK HERE (vid included)
by
pH!L!PP
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Hi all,
I read over at macslash.com that someone created a movie to proof that it's fake:
> i took three frames of the "say hello" movie,
> cropped them and made them into a fast movie.
> you can see very clearly that the device moves,
> even the lines move, but the text stays still.
> i say this is a newton handwriting recognition
> sequence imposed over a cardboard thingie.
Slashdot Mirror
This comment on MacSlash has a big list of possibly problems with the "evidence" for the iWalk. (Hell, someone's gonna get a five for posting this, might as well be me.)
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
As for the G5 chips, Apple seems to like to offer 3 speeds of processor. Supposedly Apple will offer 1.2, 1.5 and 1.8GHz speeds. If the production of 1.8 chips doesn't work out very well, then they might make the 1.5 the high end and make a 1.0 the low end.
Still, whatever comes out is my next computer purchase
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Wrong - Apples did work - but it worked with natural handwriting
;-)
Xerox patent was for an non-human sort of handwriting - when a human had to adopt to the PDA .
Btw, Graffitti from Palm started its life on Newton
the same folks who had a mockup picture of the 'iWalk' back in October. These guys lack all credibility in my book, and were very clever back then at getting the Apple community all excited. Even Slashdot reported it in October. Check out their archives on http://www.spymac.com on and around October 23rd for the first run at this hoax.
I agree that it seems to be a fake. In the iWalk_Still10.jpg, it shows the Apple logo on the job wheel, something that looks kind of retarded. If look at an iPod, it's clear that their industrial design goes for more of an understated look -- for example, there is no Apple logo on the front of an iPod. In fact, I'd expect an Apple PDA today to look more like an iPod.
The screen looks kind of odd in that shot, too. it looks like the scroll bar on the right doesn't quite line up with the tool bar on the bottom. I'd also expect the UI to look more like Aqua.
If this thing plays MP3s, Apple will be canabalizing sales from their successful iPod. They've been pretty good about marketing recently, and I'd be surprised if they pulled an obvious blunder like that (particularly since they're still stinging from the poor marketing they did with the overpriced Cube).
Finally, if I understand correctly, Steve Jobs hated the Newton. I believe he called it a "damn scribble toy" before he killed it a few years ago. It would be odd for him to resurrect it.
In short, I think this is likely another hoax.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
mirror to the quicktimes. just in case.
i just read that apple did not register a iwalk related domain. can anyone confirm this? they registered ipod.com before that was released...
Hank! White!
Spoken by someone who's never used a 2.0 Newton.
The writing recognition on the first Newtons (100, 110) did suck. Later ones using the 2.0 OS had good recognition, at least as good as Pocket PCs today.
Oh yeah, Apple's handwriting recognition software didn't work.
Newton's Handwriting recognition (HWR) software was done by a Russian company called Parasoft (now known as Parascript, and based in CO).
The Newton was waay ahead of its time. For one, it didn't have the processing power required to do great handwriting recognition. Given today's embedded CPUs, I would not be surprised to see some really good HWR stuff in this (rumored?) PDA.
The earlier Newtons HWR wasn't that great. Starting with the Newton 110, and specificaly the Newton 2000 and 2100,the HWR software known as Rosetta kicked(and still kicks) major ass. Combined with the palm rejection characteristics of the Newton's touch screen, it is still far more useable than even todays top-off-the line PocketPC running Calligrapher. This is based on ownership, not guesses.
--
I like to watch.
Paragraph made the CURSIVE recognizer on the messagepads. Apple made the Rosetta print recognizer, that was far superior to that early Paragraph recognizer. Newton OS 2.x Rosetta recognizer is still today the best HWR engine in existence (unless of course it has even been improved within Apple).
Early Newton HWR was very weak. I own a MP130 and had a MP2000 and can tell you that the latest Calligrapher (better than Transcriber) on today's PocketPC's do not surpass Rosetta as it exists on my MP130.
blake@blakespot.com --- http://www.ipodhacks.com
For one, it didn't have the processing power required to do great handwriting recognition. Given today's embedded CPUs, I would not be surprised to see some really good HWR stuff in this (rumored?) PDA
Newton 2000 (released 1997): StrongArm @ ~200MHz
Compaq iPaq 3835 (released 2001): StrongArm @ ~200MHz
You were saying?
here
Just for today.
-- The unsig...
Username: iwalk5198
Password: Xv74mS2
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
http://www.spymac.com/iwalk/.
Username: iwalk5198, Password: Xv74mS2
For those who haven't seen it yet... Here are some of the pictures:/ iWalk.html
http://www.theapplecollection.com/design/macproto
and..
http://www.rol.ru/news/it/news/01/10/26_014.htm
There is no
And then there was WebObjects (or whatever the heck it was called) that we bought for a nice chunk of change that never really worked and finally got abandoned
.woa in the URLs means.
Seems to work pretty well, too... Apple Store and iTools run on it everyday. At least, I believe what the
cat
Some people have been saying the video is fake because certain portions are not "moving" with other elements. While I am just as skeptical as others it is important to note how temporal compression works in video codecs. Essentially, areas that do not change location or value by enough, based on a given threshold or compression rate, will not change. In general, this is done in square chunks. So if that text is small enough and not moving enough, it will not move in the movie-- thus saving space in the movie size by not changing redundant pixels. The reason why the outside may be moving is because it's larger on screen and has a higher contrast between the edges... and may lie on the "box" edges of the compression codec.
Then again, it could be a fancy video editing trick. I saw the videos and it appears strange why the clip the video's when they do. If they wanted to make a stronger case they would have longer clips and continuous UI change. It could be a series of composites...
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
The thing they reminded me of is that SpyMac also released photos of the "iWalk" the day before the iPod was announced - and today's photos are completely different. The whole analysis is good - it's todays first scene at As the Apple Turns - They also did a frame by frame analysis of the Spymac video footage and found inconsistencies.
Hi all,
I read over at macslash.com that someone created a movie to proof that it's fake:
> i took three frames of the "say hello" movie,
> cropped them and made them into a fast movie.
> you can see very clearly that the device moves,
> even the lines move, but the text stays still.
> i say this is a newton handwriting recognition
> sequence imposed over a cardboard thingie.
I mirrored the movie at:
http://www.secuchat.com/beatle/nowalk.mov
Philipp