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Apple PDA?

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."

338 of 484 comments (clear)

  1. hope this does better than the newton! by kochsr · · Score: 1, Funny

    Anyway... the videos downloaded too fast. An interesting question: what does it synchronize to? Outlook? I hope so. And for the users that don't use outlook? Hopefully a slimline but functional application like palm desktop. I hope they let people write apps to let this thing interface with anything.... of course i'm sure they won't let it talk to the PC.

    1. Re:hope this does better than the newton! by buridan · · Score: 1

      theory:

      synchronize not just does the user tree files like mail, but the desktop file, that would be nifty.

    2. Re:hope this does better than the newton! by jbarket · · Score: 1

      It's much more likely to syncronize with Microsoft Entourage.. that's essentially with Mac aimed Outlook-like program..

      Fuck if I know why they'd not just port Outlook.

      --

      -----
      jonathan barket
    3. Re:hope this does better than the newton! by shinma · · Score: 1

      Outlook is ported. I'm not sure why they duplicated so much functionality in Entourage (though it's a nicer application, but so are most of the mac versions of microsoft products, oddly enough) but they did.

      --
      Shinma
    4. Re:hope this does better than the newton! by motherhead · · Score: 3, Funny

      First of all unless you rushed right out to buy a newton in it's premature birth, the newton rocked. very hard.

      as for platform dependancy... well i would think apple would want to be able to jack these things on every box sold on the planet since they are up against the likes of the Compaq iPaq and the HP Journada (which don't have Mac Client apps. Apple seems serious about the gadget market and jobs hinted at a windows version of iTunes.I am just guessing that it will be more fulfilling if used with apple OSs'.

      I hate to say it as a very long time Palm user, but i have been taking a long hard look at the journada 565 and i am glad i didn't blow coin on it just yet. apple makes slick toys. this may be just what i have been looking for.

      oh yeah... you realize that if the videos download too fast... you can hit that arrow pointing right button, and like magic you can see the video again and again and again...

  2. If it stays up is probably a fake by sebi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Everytime something like this happens you can judge how real the thing is based on Apples reaction. If they request it to be taken of then it's probably real.

    But then spymac.com is supposed to be run by Germans and Canadians. Maybe that would protect them a bit from Apple legal.

    --
    Hank! White!
    1. Re:If it stays up is probably a fake by dhamsaic · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Apple is hyping up MacWorld San Francisco more than they've ever hyped anything up. I don't think they want to give anything away, so I don't think they'd ask anything to be taken down. They've even acknowledged the rumor sites, saying:

      "Beyond the rumor sites. Way beyond."

      yesterday on their website. I dunno - originally, I'd agree with you, but I really don't think Apple wants to tip their hand right now. To put it another way: 2 months ago, I laughed at the iWalk. Now I wouldn't be surprised if it was unveiled soon.

      --
      Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
    2. Re:If it stays up is probably a fake by MaxVlast · · Score: 1

      The thing that gets me is that these 'leaked' pictures look a _whole_ lot like the iPod. The old iWalk was more of a throwback to the older design of the Newton and the PowerBooks. The iPod and these new pictures are very much in sync with Apple's new design sensibilities.

      Also, I couldn't believe the name 'iPod' when I first heard the rumors. Now that it has actually been used, I'm slightly less skeptical about 'iWalk.'

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
    3. Re:If it stays up is probably a fake by n-baxley · · Score: 2

      In the turnaround video, you can hear someone say something in German. ... bitte. I'm not sure what it is, and there's no audio aounds in the other 2 videos.

      --

      THIS SPACE FOR RENT
    4. Re:If it stays up is probably a fake by bribecka · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Beyond the rumor sites. Way beyond."

      I figured out what it is. Jobs was so enamoured with the IT/Ginger/Segway, he's integrating everything into it. It's a scooter that can hold 1000 MP3s but only has one button.

      --

      Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

    5. Re:If it stays up is probably a fake by Night0wl · · Score: 1

      Actually if it stays up it's a miracle....

      A rumor site, with video clips, with a slashdot posting?

      That in and of it's self is a +1 Funny.

      --
      Computational Madness in a round package.
    6. Re:If it stays up is probably a fake by MrSmartass · · Score: 2, Insightful

      My guess is it's either a disguised Zaurus running a full-screen video mockup, or it's just an LCD screen wrapped in some slick plastics, with a dummy "FireWire" cable piping the video in. That mysterious middle connector on the top edge of the unit is the Zaurus' CF slot.

      Someone's gone to a lot of effort to pull off this hoax. SpyMac.com's original "iWalk" mockup from just before the iPod launch was really lame. This one is more convincing, but it's still a hoax.

    7. Re:If it stays up is probably a fake by lujo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The facts don't support this being an authentic product. Let's look at the observations, facts, and trends:
      * Apple always asks sites to remove content which actual foretells coming products
      * Spymac is not the most reputable rumor site
      * Apple.com pronounced the spendor of their coming announcements after Spymac and others had made all of their conjectures of coming products--photos &videos came after this, but the iWalk name was no surprise to Apple.
      * Photos & videos at Spymac have "irregularities"--see the PunkxRock comments at MacSlash for all the details
      * with audio I/O ports, what it is the iPod for?
      * No tech specs are available on the device despite someone supposedly handling and photographing the device -- every rumor I can remember that turned out to be an actual product contained significant detail on tech specs, or at least offered a range of probable features.
      * Visuals show login, web, writing recognition, and startup, but no other apps, graphic/video/audio capability are shown or detailed.
      * Too thin for a the new 2.5" HD that's in the iPod, so nothing groundbreaking in terms of storage--and so you'd need firewire why?
      * Bad functional design
      + huge port on top with no apparent function (resembles a serial port but what PDA syncs up-side-down in its dock?)
      + start up button on bottom edge--people will compare their rates of erroneous startup/shutdowns per minute
      + functionless jog-dial -- a HUGE button that only rotates the screen? That's like mounting a steering wheel on my back bumper to open my trunk when a key or even keyless remote will do.
      + too big for pockets, those handy sleeves inside your bag/briefcase, and most purses--except my mom's big 'ss carry-on size "totes"

      So as another person once said, "To conclude, I will eat my hat if Jobs unveils this very machine tomorrow. No, wait - I'll eat my hockey puck mouse." (Hopefully I won't be doing this and going offline as this poor predictor once did.)

    8. Re:If it stays up is probably a fake by yesthatguy · · Score: 2

      If it stays up is probably a fake

      Hmmm, might be real then :) I'm getting a 403 Forbidden right now on that link . . . or maybe it's just the slashdotting.

      --
      Yes! That guy!
    9. Re:If it stays up is probably a fake by nanun · · Score: 1

      ...then it might be real, 'cuz I think it's down. I got a 403 just a moment ago.

      --

      You mean you'll put down your rock, and I'll put down my sword and we'll try and kill each other like civilized peo
    10. Re:If it stays up is probably a fake by nanun · · Score: 1


      Oop. My bad. The second link took me to SpyMac.

      --

      You mean you'll put down your rock, and I'll put down my sword and we'll try and kill each other like civilized peo
  3. 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.
    1. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Electric+Angst · · Score: 1

      Nah, a two-button mouse isn't groundbreaking. It's just redundant. You have mouse, you have button, who needs anything else?

      --
      Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
    2. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by MikeBabcock · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The commenter referenced has a number of points that refer to his/her personal feelings about Macs that probably don't apply. The MessagePad 2xxx had a big ugly connector in the bottom for syncing (although it didn't have Firewire) and given that my MessagePad 120 uses a 0.7A charger, its possible you might not want to draw the current off of a Firewire port.

      Other problems they have might be entirely overlooked by actual Mac hardware and software makers; the MessagePad doesn't look very much like a Mac at all and the bottom group of buttons was screened on in earlier versions but turned into a floating dock in later versions (that looked the same).

      ... etc.

      I don't know if its a fake or not, but Apple's got to feel stupid for discontinuing the Newton right before Palm did so well (considering Palm wrote Graffiti for the Newton at the time).

      People also seem to not realise that the printed text recognition in the Newton OS 2.x devices was almost perfect; so if you could bear to print your text instead of cursively writing it, the recogniser did very well, as well as being able to store the vectors of handwriting to be recognised later when you had more time to turn up the CPU usage.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    3. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Arctic+Fox · · Score: 1

      Thanks.... this was the best quote...(emphasis mine) "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. "

    4. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by MaxVlast · · Score: 2, Offtopic

      Walk slowly backwards and avoid eye contact ... there's still time to get out of this situation without any ugliness ... remain calm, everyone ...

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
    5. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Bob+Abooey · · Score: 2, Funny
      BLASPHEMY !!!

      The assumption there is that Mac users can somehow manage to figure out how to use a keyboard with over one hundred little tiny keys yet they are too stupid to be able to figure out how to use a mouse with more than one button. I mean Sweet Jeusus at the bus stop, it would have been more innovative for them to sell mice with a great big "L" on the left button and a great big "R" on the right button. That way the Mac user could figure out the difference between a right click and a left click.

      The whole "one button mouse is easier to figure out than a two button mouse" is one of the biggest urban myths ever propagated.

      --

      All the best,
      --Bob

    6. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Electric+Angst · · Score: 1

      C'mon, Bob. I never said Mac users can't figure it out. I said they don't need it.

      Perhaps if windows and linux developers could figure out how to develop programs with an interface clean enough that you don't need to add extra buttons to use it. You'd think that after Mac developers have given them almost twenty year's worth of good examples they'd eventually pick it up...

      --
      Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
    7. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by WoofLu · · Score: 1

      MacOS * users often use the "right-click" function, without even knowing it:
      every tried this: Ctrl+Click

      ooooh! That's magic, it gives you a nice menu :)

      My 2

    8. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Electric+Angst · · Score: 2

      The point isn't that it's an option. The point is that it isn't nessicary. Sure, they went ahead and added it for redundancy, but it's hardly a requirement to use the programs...

      --
      Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
    9. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by zsazsa · · Score: 5, Funny

      I remember the last so-called Apple product fake - the G4 Cube. The now-defunct site The Mac Junkie claimed that the leaked photo of the Cube was an utter fabrication. He gave some "evidence" of why he thought he was right, such as "Photoshop fingerprints."

      Courtesy of archive.org's cached copy: "To conclude, I will eat my hat if Jobs unveils this very machine tomorrow. No, wait - I'll eat my hockey puck mouse."

      The following morning, after Jobs announced it at MacWorld, the site went down temporarily and then permanently not long after. Oh well!

      Ian

    10. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Bob+Abooey · · Score: 1
      BLASPHEMY !!!!

      I mean, puleeeeze. If that's your argument then you may as well argue that you don't need a mouse at all. You can simply use the keyboard for everything.

      The mouse is a tool, a tool that most computer users like to use, why wouldn't you want to make it the most usefull tool that you can???

      --

      All the best,
      --Bob

    11. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Eccles · · Score: 1

      The assumption there is that Mac users can somehow manage to figure out how to use a keyboard with over one hundred little tiny keys yet they are too stupid to be able to figure out how to use a mouse with more than one button.

      My 4 year old uses my computer but does not understand a keyboard. My 7 year old hasn't fully figured out the keyboard.

      I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Apple "entire mouse is a button" mouse is the best kid's mouse ever created. The only way it could be better would be for it to have a second optical tracker.

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
    12. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by msouth · · Score: 5, Funny
      The following morning, after Jobs announced it at MacWorld, the site went down temporarily and then permanently not long after. Oh well!

      Geez, what do you expect? He's going to be in any kind of shape to keep a website running after eating a mouse? Even a translucent cute one? And just what would he be using to update his website?

      That guy is probably sitting there right now, integrity intact, mouse in digestive system, with no way to interact with his iMac. You should be honoring him, not flaming him.

      --
      Liberty uber alles.
    13. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by connorbd · · Score: 2, Offtopic

      Realistically... Cursive is a pain in the ass anyway. I don't know about most people, but I always found it harder to read and a waste of time to learn. Teaching a tenth-grader calligraphy in art class is IMHO a far more productive way of educating someone than teaching the same kid cursive in fourth grade.

      /Brian

    14. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Electric+Angst · · Score: 1

      There's a difference between making a tool effective and making it cumbersome. I suppose if one really wanted to, one could put another head on a hammer, at a twenty-degree angle so that you could hammer at two angles at once.

      That's just like putting extra buttons on a mouse, you end up making an elegant tool into a clumbsy one, all to gain features that are hardly nessicary.

      --
      Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
    15. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Dun+Malg · · Score: 1

      off on a tangent here, but I agree. I see no use in teaching children a form of handwriting that was originally optimized for quill pens. Sure, it's easier to write long documents in cursive, but who writes long documents by hand anymore?

      --
      If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
    16. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 1

      /me raises his hand. I'll let my secretary develop RSI instead of me, thank you very much. Also, there's something about long, handwritten letters that the women in your life tend to appreciate.

      --
      Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
    17. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by kilgore_47 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      My 4 year old uses my computer but does not understand a keyboard. My 7 year old hasn't fully figured out the keyboard.
      I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Apple "entire mouse is a button" mouse is the best kid's mouse ever created. The only way it could be better would be for it to have a second optical tracker.

      Maybe you should start sending your kids to school on the short bus or something, cause I've seen 5 year olds using two (or even *gasp* THREE) button mice without problems. If your 7 year old can't handle more than one mouse button, the confusion must be overwhelming when he/she tries to use a VIDEO GAME CONTROLLER with their friends. Man, those things have more than TEN buttons!

      Seriously, though, I think this whole thread is kind of silly. If you don't like two button mice, don't buy one. Same for one button mice. Just don't try to tell me kids can't figure out the extra buttons, cause thats just insulting to them.

      --
      ___
      The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
    18. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by binarybits · · Score: 2

      No, the last big Apple product fake was... the iWalk, which SpyMac claimed was what Apple would unveil when they unveiled the iPod instead. They even had alleged photos of the device, which turned out to be bogus, by their own admission. It looked completely different from the iWalk they're hyping now.

      Furthermore, spymac has *no* credibility or track record. They were completely unknown when they released their fake iWalk pictures last time, and since that time they've spent most of their time continuing to hype the iWalk. They simply have never broken a major story, so I see no reason why anyone should trust them.

      On the other hand, the Cube story came from AppleInsider, the only rumors site with a decent record of rumors that have turned out to actually be true. Even back in summer 2000, AppleInsider already had a long track record and had actually posted a few rumors that turned out to be true.

      This is a hoax. The video looks and feels like a hoax. The web site seems like a fake. They have no track record or credibility. Steve Jobs is said to have disliked the Newton, and Apple has recently done its best to quash talk of an Apple-branded PDA. And even if true, a rebirth of the Newton would not be a big enough deal to justify all the hype Apple's whipping up unless it has some really amazing specs.

      I'm disappointed that slashdot linked to them, giving them traffic and credibility they don't deserve.

    19. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by jaoswald · · Score: 1

      I'll agree about the women point, but you can develop RSI from handwriting just as from typing with poor technique.

    20. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by ajna · · Score: 1

      iCamera's already been done -- remember the Quicktake?

    21. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by JWW · · Score: 1

      They want visitors? The sites been basically slashdotted the whole day.

      If you want to so a bogus Apple product ahead of time and get mentioned on /. at least be prepared to handle the load. ;-)

    22. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Eccles · · Score: 1

      Maybe you should start sending your kids to school on the short bus or something, cause I've seen 5 year olds using two (or even *gasp* THREE) button mice without problems.

      Mine do too, actually, but when they were two years old it was more confusing. But they generally don't use the right button at all, it's just a pointless thing with the potential for occasional confusion. It's rather like being able to drag the menu bar in Visual C++; I never do it except by accident.

      I'll clarify my remarks to say it's the best mouse for small children ever.

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
    23. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      you should really try a Messagepad 2100 then - you can actually right perfectly normally on it while in the back of a cab on a bumpy street. My MP2100 also has 10 BT ethernet on a PC card. I doubt very much that Apple are about to resurrect the Newton, but the Newton itself was the most human oriented computing device since the digital watch.

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    24. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Banjonardo · · Score: 1
      Why? I only learned cursive in fourth grade. I still haven't been taught to print. (Not that I need to, any idiot can print.)

      I like cursive cause its faster and it looks better. Now caligraphy........ugh.

      --

      -----

      Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton

    25. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Afrosheen · · Score: 1

      I wonder how the hockey-puck mouse tasted.

    26. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by kaimiike1970 · · Score: 1

      You all suck ass with your outdated 'mouse' technology. Trackballs are superior in every respect. Also, you can get them with as many buttons as you feel comfortable with.

      I apologize for the 'suck ass' thing but really! Does anyone actually care what someone else uses for input?

      --


      Do a google search before posting.
    27. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by mabinogi · · Score: 1

      Except that he said he wasn't using it anyway.....

      --
      Advanced users are users too!
    28. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by WoofLu · · Score: 1

      Apple key+C -> copy
      Apple key+X -> cut
      Apple key+V -> paste ..

    29. Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by Eravau · · Score: 1
      To quote from the aforementioned site:
      I'll eat my hockey puck mouse. I'm not using it anyhow.
      Since he wasn't using the mouse to interact with his iMac to start with...I doubt that's a problem after eating the mouse. Although lack of airflow due to a mouse stuck in his throat might have inhibited his interaction with the computer.
  4. Apple started the PDA by Hairy_Potter · · Score: 1, Troll

    They pretty much started the whole market. Most Slashdotters were still in elementary school when Apple started the PDA market, but at least I remember the Newton.

    I wonder why Xerox hasn't sued them yet? Oh yeah, Apple's handwriting recognition software didn't work.

    1. 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 ;-)

    2. Re:Apple started the PDA by andrewski · · Score: 1

      You may remeber the newton, but apparently you never really used one. Mine is sitting on the desk nearby (MessagePad 110). I used the machine all the time, until I got a Palm Pilot. The handwriting recognition, after a training period of about a month, was bitchin'! My handwriting looks like that of a four year old chimpanzee. The Newton was able to keep up with it at full speed. I used Grafitti on it for a bit, but gave up and went back to the original Newton HWR because it worked well for me.

    3. 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.

    4. 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.

    5. Re:Apple started the PDA by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I wonder why Xerox hasn't sued them yet?

      Can we please lay this canard to rest?

      The reason Xerox hasn't sued, and won't sue Apple, is that Xerox made a boatload of money on Apple stock. They bought in pre-IPO, and made hundreds of millions on their investment over the years. Everything Apple ever used that came from PARC was used with Xerox's blessing.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    6. Re:Apple started the PDA by soupforare · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Umm, actually no.
      The Atari Portfolio came out in 1989.
      It was basically an XT that fit in your hand. The PIM functions were good, not great, but it was DOS2.2 and lotus 1-2-3 compatible.
      [rant]
      The bastard child of this pda was the HPLX series. These were/are the most versatile and fun to hack palmtop ever. They're an 80186, upgradable to 64megs of ram, with a pcmcia slot, a Numberpad (yes! roguelike game players unite), CGA graphics and they run on AAs.
      The original Newton, while surely it made people think about the pen interface as a serious option for handhelds, was a joke to people running palmtops with desktop power.
      [/rant]
      I wish HP would remake this with a more modern cpu. There is a japanese group supposedly working on it with the AMD Elan processor, but we haven't heard anything from them in a while.
      I've looked into older pen-based tablet computers, but I'd miss not having an actual keyboard

      We can't all afford Librettos or Picturebooks.

      --
      --- Do you believe in the day?
    7. 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

    8. 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

      Newton 2000 (released 1997): StrongArm @ ~200MHz
      Compaq iPaq 3835 (released 2001): StrongArm @ ~200MHz

      You were saying?

    9. Re:Apple started the PDA by kubrick · · Score: 2

      The reason Xerox hasn't sued, and won't sue Apple, is that Xerox made a boatload of money on Apple stock. They bought in pre-IPO, and made hundreds of millions on their investment over the years. Everything Apple ever used that came from PARC was used with Xerox's blessing.

      Additionally, I think that Xerox's opportunity to buy into Apple pre-IPO was part of a trade for the license to use the Xerox GUI patents.

      I'd be interested to know how many other GUIs out there, and the companies responsible for them, actually went that far -- MS are probably safe, simply due to the amount of companies & IP they've ingested over the years :); they could probably have hunted through their portfolio and found something relevant. Other companies, like CBM and Atari for example, may not have been overly careful...

      --
      deus does not exist but if he does
    10. Re:Apple started the PDA by emaq123 · · Score: 1

      When was the last time you used a Newton? I am currently using a MessagePad 120 with OS 2.0 and the handwriting recognition works fine.

      --


      Microsoft brought us Windows XP. I bought a Mac.
    11. Re:Apple started the PDA by edbarrett · · Score: 1
      a Numberpad (yes! roguelike game players unite)

      Real Nethackers use hjklyubn :)

      And as far as I can tell, John Sculley seems to be credited with creating the term Personal Digital Assistant in reference to the Newton.

      If I wasn't behind a firewall, I'd let y'all slashdot my Newton webserver (This obviously isn't mine).

    12. Re:Apple started the PDA by yog · · Score: 2

      > The reason Xerox hasn't sued, and won't sue Apple, is that...

      Xerox did indeed sue Apple in 1989 for $150 million over look-and-feel patent violations. The suit was thrown out.

      --
      it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
    13. Re:Apple started the PDA by soupforare · · Score: 1

      No, masochists use hjkl.

      --
      --- Do you believe in the day?
  5. dolph... by Drunken_Jackass · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Take a memo on your Newton - Beat up Martin...

    Eat up Marting

    oh yeah, this is a good idea

    --
    There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
    1. Re:dolph... by vincent99 · · Score: 1

      It was 'Eat up Martha', genius.

      --
      -- V
  6. 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...
    1. Re:Only a few more days... by sconest · · Score: 1

      Flat panel Imac, G5 , GigaWire... This isn't what I'd call "Beyond the rumors. Way beyond" (as Apple said for those who missed it).

      A (mac addict) coworker of mine also though about a super mobile phone (the iPhone ?) in the like of Handspring Tréo.
      Then again, I don't call it revolutionary

      Guess we'll just have to wait...

      --
      Guvf vf abg n EBG zrffntr
    2. Re:Only a few more days... by banky · · Score: 2

      But it's BORING!! People have been talking about flat-panel iMacs for like a year now. I understand Apple is doing marketing with all their "way beyond the rumor sites" stuff, but they should be smart enough to know they have to live up to the hype. If they don't, they'll get slaughtered in the press. If they get slaughtered in the press.... well, its something they don't need right now.

      Faster CPU? Ho-hum. Gigawire? yeah, cool, but FireWire is fast too. Is GigaWire SO MUCH FASTER that I will have to run out and buy a new machine? I already have lots of USB/USB2 and FireWire devices, why would I want to buy a new machine for Gigawire? Nothing I have has it.

      --
      ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
    3. Re:Only a few more days... by Lewisham · · Score: 1

      Flat panel iMacs I am almost certain will be announced (eagle-eyed people have spotted that The Apple Store has slapped a 7 day delivery time on the iMac, upped from three where the rest of the stock is at. 7 days puts the order after Jobs' keynote speech), but I think Apple has something bigger than that up it's sleeve. What it is, who knows? I hope it's a sexy new laptop which runs Windows and OS X. Hell, it's not going to happen but it would be nice :) I suspect it'll be something in the vein of the iPod (which is why the iWalk is such a good hoax), fits in with all this digital hub stuff they keep going on about.

    4. Re:Only a few more days... by geekoid · · Score: 2

      I would think its Gigabit SCSI.
      OTOH 30 years ago I though I would be able to go to the moon for vaction by now.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    5. Re:Only a few more days... by MouseR · · Score: 2

      Apparently the rumor mill has been reporting the large purchase of flat panel displays by Apple (read: flat panel iMac?)

      Actually, this isn't a rumor. Check out their last SEC filing. They've signed a contract for delivery of an additional 100,000 15" LCD displays per month.

    6. Re:Only a few more days... by bryan1945 · · Score: 2

      From what I've read, GigaWire is a wireless protocol (802.11a maybe?, I forget exactly which .11 it is) that runs at fast (or near fast) Ethernet speeds. Now THAT would be some cool shit!

      F Airport, here's wireless as fast as your office LAN!

      (Notice- all of the above could be wrong due to post-holiday mis-memories)

      --
      Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
  7. gullible by clarkie.mg · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    It's the same thing evey quarter, pffffff. Long live apple and their fanatics, they add a bit of fun to this serious world. However, I don't know what they will invent IF apple really makes a pda one day.

    --
    Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
    1. Re:gullible by MikeBabcock · · Score: 2, Redundant

      You're either a troll or you're unaware of the Newton Messagepad.

      Apple discontinued because it seems they were 6 years ahead of the market and not quite smart enough to make a cheaper version to whet peoples' appetites.

      Search "newton messagepad" on ebay.com or "ntlk" or "newton package" for lots of good sites on google.com.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    2. Re:gullible by MaxVlast · · Score: 1

      Apple (read: Steve) cancelled the Newton because it was John Sculley's pet project. Steve hates John because John pushed Steve out of the company fifteen years ago. Consequently, when Steve returned, he killed all of John's projects.

      (Next episode: Steve's evil twin impregnates Kitty and runs off to Monaco with a cache of G5 chips. Steve burns down John's love-nest in the tropics.)

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
    3. Re:gullible by MaxVlast · · Score: 1

      Damn. Forgot the link. For the interested, check out Apple-History. Also, Steve Levy (I think)'s book "Insanely Great" is a pretty darned neat read on the origin of the Macintosh.

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
    4. Re:gullible by MaxVlast · · Score: 1

      Nah, Jobs was right to kill the clones. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Steve fan. I love my Macs. I love my NeXTs. I think he was a little hasty killing off the Newton, though. The MP2000 was a very slick piece of hardware (I never owned one, but I saw a few in action.) Quite competent little devices.

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
    5. Re:gullible by MikeBabcock · · Score: 2

      Go to ebay.com and look up the 2000s or 2100s; they're available there used and there's lots of software available for them for download. With two PCMCIA slots you're doing well and they have Internet support and a full HTML browser. No colour; sorry :)

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    6. Re:gullible by phillymjs · · Score: 2

      I think he was a little hasty killing off the Newton, though. The MP2000 was a very slick piece of hardware.

      I still own one (though it has since been retired in favor of my trusty Palm V), and I have to agree with you. I had three Newtons: the original MessagePad, bought for $100 as a goof when they were getting blown out, a MessagePad 120, and then a 2000, later upgraded to a 2100.

      I still have the OMP, because for all its flaws it is still the granddaddy of 'em all. The MP120 was sold at close to what I bought it for on eBay when I got my MP2000. The 2000 was a great laptop replacement, I kept all kinds of data in it when I traveled. And text-to-speech on it rocked. But yeah, the huge size killed it. The Palm, I don't have to think about carrying it around, I just drop it in my pocket.

      I think that if Apple had given it a couple more years, and let Newton, Inc. complete the spinoff and start making their own shit, the Newton could have owned the PDA industry.

      ~Philly

  8. Apple Hype by sebi · · Score: 1, Interesting

    According to apple.com monday is going to be

    "Big, even for our standards"
    "Count the days, count the minutes, count on being blown away"
    "Beyond the rumour sites, way beyond"
    "A backstage pass to the future"

    Would anyone consider this iWalk thing to match these descriptions?

    --
    Hank! White!
    1. Re:Apple Hype by fader · · Score: 2, Funny

      Would anyone consider this iWalk thing to match these descriptions?

      No, but then I remember all the hype about Ginger, and we all know how earth-shattering that was.

      --
      - fader
    2. Re:Apple Hype by peteshaw · · Score: 5, Funny

      I can make a few guesses about this little mysterty


      "Big, even for our standards"
      "Count the days, count the minutes, count on >>being blown away"
      "Beyond the rumour sites, way beyond"
      "A backstage pass to the future"


      How about:

      Apple has finally regained its lost sanity and ported OS/X to x86 architecture. In an astounding jump, Apple, like Sega, has discovered it is better off as a pure software shop.

      Or better yet:

      This just in: Apple is not out of the hardware business entirely, they are also releasing an entirely new games system, called the iBox. Its going to cost over a thousand dollars and will only work with Apple brand televisions, which will be released later.

      Okay, I'm just kidding, okay. JUST KIDDING. Comprende?

      --
      www.avacal.com -- the home page of pete shaw
    3. Re:Apple Hype by MaxVlast · · Score: 1

      If it cleans the floor with WinCE, I would. Look at what they did with the iPod -- Apple took something that was a commodity, fairly dull, and made a really exciting product that most people thought was exceptionally cool. I can see them doing that with the PDA market. After all, the Newton was pretty darned cool.

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
    4. Re:Apple Hype by geoffb91 · · Score: 1

      No, but then I remember all the hype about Ginger, and we all know how earth-shattering that was.

      Anyone want to take odds on Steve Jobs arriving on stage riding a Segway?

      -G

      --
      Praise "Bob"
    5. Re:Apple Hype by Thurn+und+Taxis · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe they're planning to announce the iSegway -- it comes in four different colors!

      --
      On stereophonic equipment, the monaural sound obtained through multiple channels will enhance your listening pleasure.
    6. Re:Apple Hype by geekoid · · Score: 2

      now thats funny.
      I can see the conversation now:
      "but its worth the money, it has 4 times the processor power of the xbox, has 10 time the power, apples iTV is 782i AND i was able to buy it in orange"
      "do you have any games"
      "I said it has 4 times the power then the xbox 'nuff said"
      "sure is"

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    7. Re:Apple Hype by tobes · · Score: 1

      I'm sure they are right on it, since it worked so good for NeXT.

  9. Any mirrors? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Anyone have a mirror for these pics yet?

    Maybe not since this is lawsuit-fodder.

  10. It comes from SpyMac.com by Trajan's+Horse · · 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.

    1. Re:It comes from SpyMac.com by insomnyuk · · Score: 1

      iWalk picture=old and OBVIOUSLY photoshopped. I recall seeing this before, it might have been on /., and it was months ago. Hard to believe something like this made it to the front page.

      -insomnyuk
      WarWatch: Because People Are Stupid

  11. Big announcement with be OS X for Intel by Mean_Nishka · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Call me crazy but I still maintain 'the next big thing' from Apple is going to be a port of OS X to an Intel platform.

    Jobs' NextStep OS, which forms the foundation of OS X, was at one time ported to the Intel platform. Since many of Apple's latest innovations are an extension of failed ambitions at NeXT, it's not a stretch to imagine this product being announced on Monday.

    --
    www.lonseidman.com

    1. Re:Big announcement with be OS X for Intel by NeuroManson · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I doubt it... Consider the fact that Apple and Microsoft have been odd bedfellows since the mid 80's, that Microsoft owns some Apple stock, and yet the most poetic of revenge... Apple LIKES Microsoft's monopoly basis, as long as it can get the company shut down...

      So why would they release ANY mainstream OS when it could ensure MS being able to wriggle out of such claims? That's like fighting the war against Nazi Germany and handing them the A-bomb (godwin be damnned)...

      --
      Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
    2. Re:Big announcement with be OS X for Intel by Mean_Nishka · · Score: 1

      Apple to Microsoft is like Pakistan to the United States : They're 'allies' yet both Apple and Pakistan will be screwed in the end :). I don't see the problem now that Apple is able to operate on their own without Uncle Bill's dollars.

      --
      www.lonseidman.com

    3. Re:Big announcement with be OS X for Intel by andrewski · · Score: 1

      Both NextStep and OpenStep were ported to the PC. In fact, I wanted to run OpenStep instead of Linux back in the day, but I couldn't afford OpenStep. Damnit!

    4. Re:Big announcement with be OS X for Intel by jazzyjez · · Score: 1

      You'd like to think so. However, Apple doesn't make any money from software, so it'd be a commercial disaster for them to do that - suddenly there'd be a massive drop in Mac hardware sales which is where they make most of their money.

      The only reason I'd really like to see OSX ported to Intel is so I can use applications like Cubase on it. Maybe someone will find a way of emulating the OSX API - anyone know how difficult that would be given its closeness to BSD?

    5. Re:Big announcement with be OS X for Intel by MaxVlast · · Score: 1

      Don't worry -- you still can't afford it. (It goes for $200+ on eBay.) That's how you know it's quality software. Five years dead and still a hot commodity. Even illegal copies are costly nowadays.

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
    6. Re:Big announcement with be OS X for Intel by ender81b · · Score: 1

      I wish. Man do I really wish. Just think: a unix command-line enviroment, ultra-cool interface, and a great suite of applications.

      Oh wait.. that kindof sounds like a linux killer doesn't it?
      =)

    7. Re:Big announcement with be OS X for Intel by buserror · · Score: 1

      Thats silly; if apple was to do that -at the risk of killing their hardware sales- the developer community would have know about it.
      There would at least have been some 'preparation work' in the documentations about endianess issues etc.

      But theres nothing. Beside, most MacOSX applications are build using codewarrior... and codewarrior would need a LOT of work to make their x86 compiler eat OSX headers and stuff.

      Apple is pushing all it can to get applications for OSX/PPC.. on x86 they'd go back 2 years, with... zero applications.

    8. Re:Big announcement with be OS X for Intel by vandenberg5 · · Score: 1

      Um, Why not just buy Cubase for the PC? Stienberg has started releasing the software for the intel stuff faster than the mac counterparts. I think you can upgrade to a different platform if needed.

    9. Re:Big announcement with be OS X for Intel by phillymjs · · Score: 2

      I don't see the problem now that Apple is able to operate on their own without Uncle Bill's dollars.

      The problem is that this country is populated mostly by unthinking, gullible morons-- these are, after all, the same people who basically thought that a Microsoft's $150M investment in non-voting Apple stock meant that Microsoft had bought Apple.

      Sure, the intelligent people out there know that Apple can get by without Microsoft, but since we're vastly outnumbered by the stupid, guess what would still happen to Apple if Bill got on TV tonight and said, "Oh, the Mac is dead. We're ceasing development of all of our Mac products effective immediately"?

      ~Philly

    10. Re:Big announcement with be OS X for Intel by Master+Bait · · Score: 1

      I do0n't think they will do that until the 64-bit Hammer comes out. By that time there will be enough OSX apps to make it worthwhile.

      --
      "Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
      --Tom Schulman
  12. They must be real..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Only Apple would use quicktime to do videos!

    1. Re:They must be real..... by bear777 · · Score: 1

      ...only Apple and movie sites which movie has carefully inserted Apple products. i'm still trying to spot the strategically placed Apple products on LOTR...

      --
      L'etat n'a pas besoin des savants.
      - Robespierre, refusing clemency for Lavoisier
  13. Good Grief by heidialyssa · · Score: 1
    I hope they're not planning a PDA. Handspring and Palm's are over saturated and even THEY are unable to sell them.

    Dazzle us with new iMacs, faster processors and perhaps a new tower case.

  14. Additional Photo by Twiki · · Score: 1

    I can't get to the main story link; is this an accurate photo?

    --
    mySig
    1. Re:Additional Photo by bo0push3r · · Score: 1

      hah.. no. that's not what it looks like at all. the 'iWalk' pictured in another story from the same source looks like a palm Vx that's had the case stripped off, painted some metallic color and brushed for effect.. the picture you submitted depicts a totally different animal.

      way to go guys! :(|)

    2. Re:Additional Photo by Lars+T. · · Score: 2

      No, that's the iWalk-fake they did a couple of days before the iPod came out. Their new iWalk-fake looks somewhat like an iPod ;-)

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  15. Sure an apple PDA is great... by Rope_a_Dope · · Score: 1

    But can I play Tiger Woods golf on this thing?

  16. they have a tough NUt to crack by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I still use my Palm IIIx. I have thought of changing or upgrading several times. But nothing can add any useability or real functionality to my Palm IIIx. the color screen is nothing more than a gimmick. and make the unit un-useable outside, and forces you to charge it everyday. The neat-o add-on gadgets are only toys, and the mp3 player add-on for the handspring is lame and more expensive than buying a seperate mp3 player.

    the only palm device that has my interest is the Sharp Zaurus running linux. but only for a few of the neat-o features. as for productivity? it offer's nothing, and will actually hamper my productivity by forcing to learn a new interface, no Linux sync and probably a much shorter battery life.

    So what can apple offer to this world that would entice me to drop my palm-pilot for their peoduct?

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:they have a tough NUt to crack by weeble · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I would disagree with your comments on Zaurus useability.

      Some of the things that I find very useful are as follows:

      The ability to mount an nfs drive (the max I have had is 61Gb on my PDA ;-)

      The ability to log into any of my servers using ssh via an infrared connection to my mobile. I am not sure whether this can be done using a palm.

      The Zaurus screen is higher definition than the palm and it should be possible to do a Solaris install via a serial connection once serial cables are available.

      Web browsing is much better using opera and is very usable even via a mobile phone.

      Compact flash ethernet for mobile connectivity around the office is fantastic :-)

      At present I think for a laptop / portable replacement I am missing gpg and imap (though ssh, screen and pine works well)

      On the trivial side I have got it playing videoCDs at about 3 frames a second.

      --
      Slashdot Beta should die a painful death.
    2. Re:they have a tough NUt to crack by Roger_Wilco · · Score: 1
      I agree --- Palm screwed up big time. They should have learned not to release a good product --- what will they do to get us to buy another one?

      I have a Palm III; it's about 3.5 years old, and I don't see any reason to replace it anytime soon.

    3. Re:they have a tough NUt to crack by AnotherLinuxUser · · Score: 1

      >>So what can apple offer to this world that
      >>would entice me to drop my palm-pilot for
      >>their peoduct?

      A spell checker, perhaps ? :-) :-)

    4. Re:they have a tough NUt to crack by wessto · · Score: 1

      I would have to disagree with you on this. Hope I'm not going too far off topic here, but I have the palm m505 and it is wonderful in outdoor light. I charge it maybe once a week at the very most. Although my comment here may be my opinion, I admit it openly. Please don't make sweeping statements that don't hold water with me.

      Back to the original topic here, I hope that apple does implement something in color. IMHO color makes everything more fun. Think where we would be if we were still watching B/W movies? How about newspapers in only B/W? Just my thoughts...

    5. Re:they have a tough NUt to crack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
      Please don't make sweeping statements that don't hold water with me.

      That's right, Lumpy. From now own, submit all your postings to wessto for approval before posting them.

  17. the newton is dead, you know. by clarkie.mg · · Score: 2

    Yes apple made the newton but they stopped it what seems a long time ago. So now, they are not making a pda (obviously, the post is fake). So my IF in "However, I don't know what they will invent IF apple really makes a pda one day." remains.

    --
    Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
    1. Re:the newton is dead, you know. by MikeBabcock · · Score: 2

      Just for the sake of saying why I said what I said:

      "If Apple really makes a PDA" is incorrect but "If Apple really makes another PDA" would be valid.

      Your statement was (and is) wrong in light of their creation of the MessagePad (5 generations or so thereof too).

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
  18. Better effort this time. by spacelord+carpman · · Score: 1

    Whoever did the iWalk on the previous 'Big Release' from Apple (which became the iPod) has learned from their previous failures. This time, instead of pasting an object into a picture, and then messing up the shadows they used a real object (bet it's an iPaq in a plastic shell, Apple would never put something as obtrusive as that jog wheel where it is). However, they again made a fatal mistake. Whenever you see the unit run, you will notice arround the edges of the screen that there is a shadow all arround. This is not possible in a real world, I'm affraid. Also, when the person writes, you never actually see them write, only the written words after they move their hand. Oh that I could believe it were true.

    --
    All your void pointer are belong to us!
  19. Discussion by webslacker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's an ongoing discussion at Ars Technica about its validity...

  20. 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.
    1. Re:Seems likely to be a fake by geojaz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just going on past experiences, like the G4 Cube, I would rate it difficult to judge the likelyhood of Apple releasing this based on it's appearance. I remember everyone on /. going off about "how dumb the design is" and then what do you know, the cube is for sale...
      That being said, wait till Monday, I'm sure Apple has plenty in store.

      --
      prosebeforehos.com
    2. Re:Seems likely to be a fake by andfarm · · Score: 1
      In fact, I believe I know why that wheel is there, and why there's an Apple logo on it...
      It's covering up the standard cursor keys!
      This supposed "iWalk" is really just a modified WinCE device, with a changed case and logos added. Since the cursor pad would look suspicious to most, SpyMac added a logo to cover it.

      In short, this is a hoax. A joke, even. But funny.

      Perhaps Apple is going to release the G5 Dodecahedron, instead?

      --

      TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.

  21. Mirror by sebi · · Score: 4, Informative

    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!
    1. Re:Mirror by Merlin42 · · Score: 1

      The videos look very fake to me. Did anyone else notice that the iWalk is _very_ still whenever the screen actually in use? Just plop a nice blue square in where the screen should be and composite in generated screen shots .... Not too dificult if you have any experience w/ special effects. And as someone else pointed out, the apple logo spinning!?!?!? You've got to be joking!

      --
      Thoughts on tech, Software Engineering, and stuff
    2. Re:Mirror by Real_Revbob · · Score: 1

      Well ipad.com is registered. That's another possible rumored name.

  22. Re:4comments and the sites already ./ed by Mean_Nishka · · Score: 1
    One of the problems with Newton was that it was so much larger than the Palm Pilot many folks had a hard time taking it with them. If the spymac.com photos are true, this will be yet another Apple failure. This thing is way too big and clunky and borders on downright ugly!

    The form factor to beat is the Ipaq. It's powerful yet small enough to fit in a pocket. That's what people want.

    --
    www.lonseidman.com

  23. Apple by kawaichan · · Score: 1

    Apple is probably the only tech company right now that can create hype and somewhat live up to it. Unlike someone (M$, Intel etc)

    iWalk is totally fake, I think it was on /. last time the day when Apple announced iPOD.

    Apple will never, never, never release OSX for Intel, I know it would be cool (I honestly would pay at least $100 for it) but that would hurt Apple's hardware sales. (and one of the main reason why iBOOK are selling like hotcakes right now). They might announce LCD iMAC and probably a digital camera.

    --

    kawai
    1. Re:Apple by kawaichan · · Score: 1

      OK, I take back the fake iwalk part, I saw the videos, looks really, really cool, this is big.

      --

      kawai
    2. Re:Apple by MaxVlast · · Score: 1

      I'd much rather use LINUX on my PC. No more of that silly WINDOWS for me. Though an IPAQ might be kinda cool. Does SUN offer anything like that? I don't THINK so.

      (Is it really that hard to remember the capitalization of things like iBook. iMac, Mac, etc.? It's not like they're NeXT, NEXTSTEP, or OpenStep, whose capitalization really is weird.)

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
    3. Re:Apple by MaxVlast · · Score: 1

      It just strikes me that it's odd when people claim to have something worthwhile to say and they don't know how to properly present what they're trying to be authoritative about.

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
  24. I hope they're right. by jpellino · · Score: 1

    I miss Newton. It did rev 1 what palm still is unable to do - parse and integrate what you WANT.

    Hell, I miss the Magic Link!

    Compared to a real GUI/OS, using PalmOS is still like trying to talk to the Frankenstein/Tonto characters from Saturday Night Live.

    As for compatability - who cares about the device os as long as it syncs with anything - like palm does.

    --
    "Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
  25. Argh.... by Myuu · · Score: 1
    GDMNT... I just bought my YOPY...and now this...better suck =/

    As far as GigaWire goes...Osopinion.com ran a STORY that makes sense...cool if real....

    Mmmm...built in airport...=/...Ipod hybrid...how can it suck?

    --

    forget it.
  26. Fool you once... shame on you! by Bug-Y2K · · Score: 1


    This is the same site that was predicting the "iWalk" before the "iPod" was released.
    Note the date (10-23-2001) on the above URL.

    Never believe the Mac 'rumour sites' they rarely get it right. Except for the 'night before the keynote' in the past when leaks showed up from the show-floor setup folks. Perhaps this is why the keynote was moved up a day. I have heard show floor setup security will be very tight. No vendor is allowed on the floor to setup until after the keynote starts, except Apple of course.

  27. they were going to name it... by Lurking+Grue · · Score: 2, Funny

    e-walk, but some guy named Lucas threatened to sue. (Also couldn't get NSYNC to agree to perform at product launch.)

  28. logo there for a reason by crayz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Check out the bootup movie and the other stills - the logo is there to let you choose how you want the OS oriented on the screen(vertical or horizontal). Watch the bootup movie to see how he changes the orientation by spinning the wheel and pressing the button on the bottom.

    People have a lot of reasons why it's fake, but I think this is just way too elaborate. It's gotta be the real thing.

    1. Re:logo there for a reason by sebi · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The bootup movie does have the biggest problem though. If you watch the wheelspinning in slomo you can see, that the apple doesn't really move in synch to the hand manipulating it. The hand moves a bit and suddenly the apple jumps to a different position and only then moves naturally. looks like a post production mistake to me.

      --
      Hank! White!
    2. Re:logo there for a reason by Triv · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Watch the bootup movie to see how he changes the orientation by spinning the wheel and pressing the button on the bottom.

      Look at it really closely. See how easy the finger moves the wheel to change the orientation? It's way too...loose. It looks like there's no resistance at all, and without that resistance there's very little you can do keep it's orientation from slipping the moment your hand bumps a little. Besides, would YOU want a huge, single function button on the front of your pda?

      Nice try, but not at all real. Good try tho. Just my view.

      Triv

    3. Re:logo there for a reason by JWW · · Score: 1

      What's interesting though is that if you look frame by frame at the video whe they change the screen orientation, it draws the main part of the screen and then draws the menubar. Either they are being very elaborate in their hoax, or its real. I would expect a pasted image to just drop in place with one image for one direction and another for the other, no real screen redraw sort of function noticable. However, it would be wayyyy more convincing if the device were being held while the screen changed, because then faking it by altering the screen images later would be much harder to pull off.

    4. Re:logo there for a reason by oliverk · · Score: 2, Funny
      Besides, would YOU want a huge, single function button..."

      Have you seen the mac mouse? It *IS* a huge, single function button :)

      --
      ---- Please be nice in case my Slashdot karma ~= my real life karma.
    5. Re:logo there for a reason by danhoover · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't have believed it either,.. until I saw how the volume/scroll wheel on my iPod spins with no resistance whatsoever...

  29. Re:delightful.....yes, it is by DwarfGoanna · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Judging by the trollish nature of your post, I'm guessing you haven't actually used an iPod (or possibly any of the latest Mac hardware). It's anything BUT underpowered (It's too early in the morning for me to make a pun about how it charges it's 10 hour battery via Firewire), and guess what? There is no comparable unit.


    Apple's strength (and their current strategy) is that all their stuff works together in ways that cheap commodity crap cannot. Yes, many of the features are Mac-only. Gee, maybe thats because they want more people to buy Macs. Go figure.


    Just because they carry a massive boulder of FUD around on their back does not mean they aren't doing some really cool sh!t these days. I'll bet my left testicle that this thing can do sh!t no other PDA can do.


    Why?


    1) Jobs is one nitpicky SOB, and this (ala the Cube and iMac) looks like one of his pet projects.


    2)This is Apple's latest marketing scheme and product strategy. Leveraging the fact that they make the hardware AND software.


    3)Apple invented the fscking PDA. There is no question they have been working on this since the Newton got killed.


    While you can have fun getting your Visor, Rio, and Heinz 57 box to play nice, life just got a little sweeter for 5% of us. =)

    --

    "You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo

  30. 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.

  31. Too much for Macworld by TexTex · · Score: 1

    One of the biggest criticisms that struck a chord with Apple was that they had these HUGE Macworld presentations, followed by two or three conferences with not much of note. You lose a lot of mystique when the CEO comes out and waves his hands and poof...all that happens is processor speeds increase. So while there will most likely be announcements of note come January 7th, we're not going to get ALL the annoucements of note. Something, and probably a few, might be saved for further development until summer.

    I'd expect a new Mac...most likely the iMac revision as it's suffered without serious attention for the longest period of time. The G5 seems unlikely only because they aren't going to be shipping it even if they announce it, and showing off and shipping would be truly an annoucement.

    --
    -Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
  32. "Maybe they'll make Slashdot again..." by The_Messenger · · Score: 1, Informative
    I'm sure that everyone has seen the hoax debunking on MacSlash by now. Check the comment at the bottom:
    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.

  33. Dudes, it's fake by ZigMonty · · Score: 2
    There is no way that apple would put their badge on such a shoddy product, not these days anyway. Compare the "iWalk's" design with the iPod's. Come on people, if Apple wanted to break into the Pocket PC market (ie. more than just an organiser) it would have to be at least as good and look at least as cool as an iPaq. This doesn't even come close. Hell, it probably IS an iPaq under that god-awful case.

    The poor design (that's a jog wheel?!) makes this an obvious fake.

    1. Re:Dudes, it's fake by ZigMonty · · Score: 2

      Stuff like the case covering the edge of the screen and partially covering a scroll bar in the still pictures is what makes me suspicious. It's possible that it's real and the case only is a mock up. I still don't think it's real but obviously I could be wrong.

    2. Re:Dudes, it's fake by PowerBook2k · · Score: 1

      That power adapter is for the Titanium PowerBook G4 on the desk next to it, genius.

  34. as an earlier poster said... by banky · · Score: 2, Redundant

    Its a fake. Something the poster DIDN'T mention was the screwy cursor in the upper-left corner corner during the handwriting demo, which is what sold it for me; someone obviously didn't check closely enough before releasing.

    Another thing that got me was the jog dial. It was OBVIOUSLY bolted on. Look at the iPod's dial: it lands perfectly under your thumb, and it is grouped closely with the controls. It is about 3/4 of the way up the device, putting it everything perfectly in reach. This thing, its on the bottom, and it PROTRUDES. In any configuration, it's in the wrong place, because you have to use the bottom button thing to actually anything. At least the iPaq's bottom-center button is a 4-way hat thing.

    I wish it was true. Like the Ars Technica articles, "I want to believe".

    --
    ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
    1. Re:as an earlier poster said... by jonnythan · · Score: 1

      That, and the fact that it says "booting up" when you turn it on.

  35. How about... by mshiltonj · · Score: 1

    iDontCare

    or

    iWannaTreo

    or

    iAmTiredOfGimicNamesThatStartWith_i

    --
    Software Wars
  36. Why make a hoax.... by 0see3 · · Score: 1

    ....So you can tell all your pals that you got slashdotted.

    --
    "I lost my genitals in a fire"
  37. idock by alexjohns · · Score: 2
    I think this is bogus. See all the other posts as to why.

    The rumor I'm getting is that the big announcement is the 'IDock'. An LCD screen with a keyboard/mouse and a wireless connection back to the PC. Take it anywhere while your Mac sits safely in a closet. Doubt that it's Bluetooth, probably 802.11a[b?]. Could also be a pen driven thingy instead of the keyboard. At least that's what I've heard. Don't know what the limit on range is, but it should take you out to the pool or patio. Sounds pretty sweet.

    Along with OS X and the IPod, I'm thinking of going back to Apple. My IIe needs company. :)

    1. re: iDock by scrawny · · Score: 1

      you know how much bandwidth full screen video takes? 1024x768x24>30fps. 30fps would annoy a lot of people. still over 550Mb/sec. and you want this wireless? in a low end iMac? maybe we'll get wireless pci and agp add-on slots first.

      --
      neopets.com
    2. Re: iDock by Jobe_br · · Score: 2

      Ever used VNC, Timbuktu, or pcAnywhere? These applications work acceptably well over typical broadband connections to the 'Net, sometimes even over 56k dial-up. On a LAN, they're close to perfect, minimal lag, etc. And yes, even at 1024x768 @ 24-bit color (my iMac doesn't do 32-bit color, I'm not sure if any do). Watching a DVD via such software may not be recommended, but otherwise, it is highly useable.

      Think before speaking and save us all some trouble!

    3. re: iDock by scrawny · · Score: 1

      Watching a DVD via such software may not be recommended...
      DVD is non-dynamic and cacheable. it should perform well.
      have you tried playing a FPS over timbuktu? it's weak. i'm not talking about connecting to another player, i'm talking about running the game on the remote machine. even marathon is a low-requirements game and it isn't feasible. timbuktu and PCanywhere rely on amounts of visual information that doesn't change. even a cursor across 100bT steps across the screen. why? the info is dynamic and not predictable. why no wireless monitors already? bandwidth. it's not rocket science. if they could do wireless displays, they would have already. if Apple decides it's time for something like this, it's not going to be in a low-cost iMac. how isn't this obvious?

      ___
      honor your own .sig

      --
      neopets.com
  38. Leather Case? by mattsouthworth · · Score: 1

    Isn't Steve Jobs vegan? Would he let his company market something with a leather case? Maybe the case is made of thousands of dead nogas...

  39. Fake?...for a grade? by Moofisto · · Score: 1
    This reminds me of a time at university--

    Someone had broken into the display cases of the Industrial Design exhibit. Stolen were many of the students' final projects. The projects were mockups/models of radar detectors. Seemingly, the thief was convinced they were real.

    more iWalk dissection

  40. Apple secrets revealed by briggsb · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's not a PDA or a giant robot that's going to be revealed at the expo. Finally Apple will be taking the wraps off the next generation dMac. There's pictures on this site an everything.

  41. Any mirrors? by rekoil · · Score: 1

    The site's unreachable already, as is spymac.com as well.

  42. who cares? move on and think like the commercials by f00zbll · · Score: 2
    People get real. If it's just another pocket PC (real or fake), it's just more of the same. I would like to see a company really "think different" and come up with a totally new idea that really changes how people use computers. The things coming out of MIT impress me more than "yet another pocket pc."

    Considering it is technically feasible to have a pocket pc that has broadband wireless and stylish heads up display today, all these devices are a bit primitive and stupid. I'll be impressed when pocket pc's have good voice recognition, a small footprint rules engine, 1 gig of memory, 50gig hard drive, heads up display and supports multiple wireless standards for secure transaction.

  43. I'm skeptical! by Acoustic_Nowhere · · Score: 1
    It's the audio in/out ports that make me wonder if this is real. Too much like a dream.

  44. Jobs and Hype......... by CDWert · · Score: 1

    Jobs reminds me of one of those late night infomercial guys when it come to hype....

    Hey wasnt a lot of the hype behind the scooter thing the segway created by jobs and bezos ?

    Kinda reminded me of Geraldo and Capones vault,

    I hope for Apple the MacWorld expo isnt another one of Jobs hype jobs like my last foray into apple land, I bought a Lisa..... (Yep I am one of those dumbasses) But it looked cool, it was all hyped up and it was a company dollar.

    Although Apple seems to have the wold by the ass on a downhill run when it comes to their products latley, they could probably release an electric can operer add fire wire and sell the hell out of em ....

    --
    Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
  45. It's a fake and here is why by kawaichan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Guys, go download the sayhello.mov video (the middle one) and enlarge it to full screen.

    Now Play the video, notice as the guy writes, the "PDA" is moving around (which is normal) but the screen is NOT moving along with the PDA at all (which btw, is abnormal)

    Oh well, next rumor ->

    --

    kawai
    1. Re:It's a fake and here is why by Jhan · · Score: 1

      So, not only is Apple doing a kick-ass palmtop, it's also got steadycam technology!? I've got to get me one of those!

      --

      I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.

    2. Re:It's a fake and here is why by suprax · · Score: 2

      Ahhh, thats a very interesting point there. I was thinking it could just be the encoding and quality of the video, but it sure does look like the PDA is shifting but the screen does not move with the writing. Hrmmm.

  46. its the Newton reborn! by davmct · · Score: 1

    Seems like Steve must've found a bunch of Newtons in old inventory that he souped up with color displays. What we'll probably see is a cross between the handheld organizer and their iMusic device. in the end? a great organizer with 6GB of storage. tell me that hasn't been done yet. :)

  47. If it were real... by kschrader · · Score: 1

    If these videos were authentic then I sure that the Cupertino laywers would have shut this site down by now. In the past they've always had leaks shut down almost as soon as they crop up through the use of heavy-handed legal threats directed at everyone involved. The history of this sort of thing undermines the credibility of this story already, as these videos have been up since late yesterday.

  48. If it isn't a fake ... by Mr_Silver · · Score: 2
    ... then it wouldn't surprise me if Apple makes this Mac only like their iPod. Which would strike me as being the second dumbest thing they've done (the first being making the iPod Apple only).

    Why? Well yes, I can sort of understand why they are doing it, after all, the iPod is very sexy and no doubt the iWalk would be too. But if you consider the target audience for iPods/Walks you suddenly realise that they are the sort of people who already have a personal computer or laptop for which they use to listen to MP3's or syncronise with their favourite PIM.

    Making them Apple only in an attempt to say "hey, if you want these cool things you have to have a Mac" is all very fine and well, but since the target audience is going to be happy with their PC and Windows or Linux, they're not going to ditch it quite yet and spend a couple of hundred pounds on a spanky new iMac just for the sake of one thing.

    Or are they?

    ps. Thankfully a company called MediaFour is creating an application called xplay (the new name for XPod) which will allow iPods to communicate with Windows.

    --
    Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
    1. Re:If it isn't a fake ... by stripes · · Score: 2
      Or are they?

      I know three people that did. The real question is does Apple make more money convincing a few people to buy a Mac so they can use an iPod (or whatever), or from selling lots of iPods (or whatever) to PC users?

    2. Re:If it isn't a fake ... by overunderunderdone · · Score: 2

      Which would strike me as being the second dumbest thing they've done (the first being making the iPod Apple only).

      I don't know that that was really a dumb thing. There are a couple of reasons to make it Mac only and a couple of related reasons to NOT make it crossplatform. A short term reason for not making iPod's cross platform is that they might have been overwhelmed with demand.

      A likely long term reason to make it Mac only is that the iPod is not in a vaccum intended only to make money through it's own sales. It is part of a larger strategy to increase the Mac's market share and hardware sales. Of course nobody would buy a mac just for its integration with the iPod. But they might buy a mac to get into a whole 'mac world' of well designed and highly integrated software and hardware of which the iPod is just one component.

      If they make it compatible with PC's and as easy and seamlessly integrated (assuming thats even possible) what then is the Mac's advantage. If they don't (or can't) make it as seamlessly integrated and easy then the iPod has lost at least a portion of what makes it a superior product and Apple has undermined it's reputation.

  49. Complete with... by Publicus · · Score: 1

    Apple's proven handwriting recognition:

    Beat up Martin = Eat up Martha

    --

    My Karma was at 49, then they switched to words. All that work for nothing!

  50. Sure, I'd buy an Apple PDA by stesch · · Score: 1

    ... and a few months later Steve Jobs will decide to drop it.

    No way.

  51. Es brodelt in der Geruechtekueche by patrickoehlinger · · Score: 1

    The Austrian Newspaper Der Standard has a mirror too. They also have pictures of a (flat screen) iMac.

    --
    >> Had I been going to bed earlier every night? Have I been sleeping later? Has Tyler been in charge longer and l
  52. Impossible! by Decimal+Dave · · Score: 1

    This can't exist...didn't anyone see Apple's main page yesterday? Macworld SF is supposed to be "Beyond the rumor sites. Way beyond."

    --

    "Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
  53. Bass-ackwards (Re:OS X for Intel) by sh00z · · Score: 1

    Seems like MacOS on X86 would be a big mistake, especilly when the mainstream press is praising how well Windows and Linux run on Apple hardware!

  54. oh puleaze by dr_beno · · Score: 1

    this would be promotional material lacks all the slickness we have com to expect form apple. not to mention that ridiculous knob that looks like it's glued on - and that's supposed to come from the same people that dreamt up the ipod? nooooo.

    --
    Don't get me wrong!
  55. OS? by mstich · · Score: 1

    What OS will this PDA be running? Something proprietary and brand new? Or what?

  56. Rumors and speculation..... by BWJones · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Dudes (women included), relax. It always amazes me when I see the time and effort people put into rumors sites. What's the point? Products will be ready when they are ready and there is no point speculating about them. If the "iWalk" is a fake, its a fake. If it's the real thing then great. You knew about it four days in advance of the introduction. What are you gonna' do? Tell all of your friends "Hey, I knew about is X weeks in advance!!!" Yeah, that's cool.

    Spend time doing productive things, like volunteering the time you would have spent on such a rumors site in a local charity. Or read something NOT online.

    --
    Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
  57. Unfair Monopoly! by ghostis · · Score: 2, Funny

    This rumor has an unfair monopoly; we all know how much monopolies suck! So all you free market champions out there: I challenge you to produce evidence of an equally compelling new Apple product that is going to change the face computing. Whip out your Gimps, Photoshops, and other varied authoring tools and whip up a new and improved rumor! We can't in good conscience let this one take over the market ;-)!

    -ghostis

    --


    Computer Science is all about trying to find the right wrench to bang in the right screw. -T.Cumbo?
  58. Re:delightful.....yes, it is(?) by Cadre · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Post, moderate, moderate, post...

    Apple's licensing their hardware to 3rd party vendors would have been the best move they made except for none of the 3rd parties that Apple licensed to actually expanded the market. While they brought faster CPU speeds to the market among some other neat things, they just eroded Apple's share of the Mac market and didn't actually increase the Mac market. This was bad because the Mac market was too small to support everyone.

    One of the best moves Apple made was buying out Power Computing and getting their great engineers and technologies.

    --
    All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
  59. yep by crayz · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I've seen that too. I still think it's real, but that jump is pretty bad. We'll all know in 4 days anyway, but if this is a hoax it's by far the best ever.

  60. Trash-80 model 100 by wiredog · · Score: 2

    Was the first PDA. Had a keyboard and 4 line display. Reporters loved it.

    --

    Best Slashdot Co
    1. Re:Trash-80 model 100 by soupforare · · Score: 1

      I have a couple of these, the reason I didn't list it as the first PDA is that it's quite large... and the PIM software on it is basically nonexistant.

      fun little machine though, you can beat the shit out of it

      --
      --- Do you believe in the day?
    2. Re:Trash-80 model 100 by talonyx · · Score: 2

      I had one of those when I was 5 years old. My dad had it for some reason and he gave it to me.

      It wasn't really a PDA because there were no applications. It was mostly a portable programmable calculator. The built in printer was a pretty kickass feature, even though I never managed to get it working so I just used the paper reels to tye my brother to a chair :-)

      The first real PDA would have been one of those earlier Casio-organizer style things, with a keyboard and minimalistic applications to help managa information (like a phone book).

      Then the Psion and the Newtons rose up and engulfed the market with a new high end, to be joined by Palm and now Microsoft.

  61. Re:delightful.....yes, it is(?) by bo0push3r · · Score: 1

    i seem to remember one of their [Apple's] big problems being that some of the vendors had planned Mac/PC hybrid systems.. *shrug* i may be wrong.. anyone?

  62. Temporary Mirror w. vid clips by Simon+Carr · · Score: 3, Informative

    here

    Just for today.

    --
    -- The unsig...
  63. Need UserID/Password to view....free one here by bdavenport · · Score: 4, Informative

    Username: iwalk5198

    Password: Xv74mS2

    --
    /* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
    1. Re:Need UserID/Password to view....free one here by Hank+Scorpio · · Score: 1

      Hey, you quoted me in your .sig! How thoughtful! :)

  64. Re:Nothing new by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    OK. That's BS.

    In the last 4 years what products has Apple come out with and then dropped?

    2

    Newton - 4 years ago
    G4 Cube - 9 months ago.

    That's it.

    They came out with a new OS and are still upgrading the old one. Since OS X came out, they have done 3 patches on OS 9. When MS releases a new OS, the patches stop for the old ones. Sorry, free patches.

  65. Slashdotted already by Arcturax · · Score: 1

    You'd think they'd learned from yesterday not to run a Lisa as a web server.

    Anyone have a mirror they put to the slashdot test?

    --

    --Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
  66. mod parent up by CapnGib · · Score: 1

    mod parent up

    --
    Beauty is truly in the eye of the tiger
  67. Re:who cares? move on and think like the commercia by medcalf · · Score: 2
    I'll be impressed when pocket pc's have good voice recognition, a small footprint rules engine, 1 gig of memory, 50gig hard drive, heads up display and supports multiple wireless standards for secure transaction.

    No, you won't, because anyone who would make a statement like this is inherently disinterested in any product that is within 2 years of possible. So, at the time such a device comes out, you'll be noting that it is underpowered, without sufficient RAM, and doesn't have a quantum processor anyway.

    --
    -- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
  68. Spymac original video/images by supabeast! · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.spymac.com/iwalk/.
    Username: iwalk5198, Password: Xv74mS2

    1. Re:Spymac original video/images by alexburke · · Score: 2

      Here is a clickable authenticating link.

  69. But the REAL questions are.... by RobertAG · · Score: 1, Troll

    1. How much RAM? CPU speed?

    Let me listen to MP3's and store documents temporarily. Since I'm constantly travelling, my PDA has become my Laptop.

    2. Wireless connectivity (802.11x)?

    None of this pay as you stuff or Apple proprietary crap. I want to ba able to connect it to my networks at home and work - seamlessly.

    And finally...
    3. What's the cost?

    If it costs substantially more than an IPAQ without offering any compelling features, I'm not buying it.

    I didn't include battery life because that's really out of Apple's hands. Sure they can engineer the product to conserve power, but most rechargable PDA devices need AC power every 4-5 hours after constant use.

    1. Re:But the REAL questions are.... by imadork · · Score: 2
      2. Wireless connectivity (802.11x)?

      None of this pay as you stuff or Apple proprietary crap. I want to ba able to connect it to my networks at home and work - seamlessly.

      heh. Tell Linksys, Lucent (or whatever company they've spun their wireless stuff into), Dell, etc. that 802.11 is Apple Proprietary. They'll tell you it isn't. AirPort(tm) may be Apple's trademark, and all the nifty Mac Gui stuff to configure it is proprietary, but I assure you that Macs with AirPort can use normal 802.11x access points, and PC's with cards can use AirPort Acess points, both with a minimum of fuss.

      The bigger issue is what 802.11 would do to the power requirements of a PDA. Why should you bother using wireless to communicate between a PDA and a computer when the PDA has to be plugged into some sort of cradle to charge, anyway?

    2. Re:But the REAL questions are.... by dublin · · Score: 2

      None of this pay as you stuff or Apple proprietary crap. I want to ba able to connect it to my networks at home and work - seamlessly.

      >heh. Tell Linksys, Lucent (or whatever company they've spun their wireless stuff into), Dell, etc. that 802.11 is Apple Proprietary. They'll tell you it isn't. AirPort(tm) may be Apple's trademark, and all the nifty Mac Gui stuff to configure it is proprietary, but I assure you that Macs with AirPort can use normal 802.11x access points, and PC's with cards can use AirPort Acess points, both with a minimum of fuss.

      The Apple, Dell, Lucent, Cisco Aironet, Buffalo, and possibly others are exactly the same units, all built by the same company and OEM'ed under the different names. They all interoperate flawlessly.

      --
      "The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last ./ post
  70. Comparing Apples to more expensive Apples by MicroBerto · · Score: 1
    This is probably a hoax, yadda yadda... If you want my prediction, their new cool thing may not be anything extremely special -- but it's the PRICE that's going to take us all in.

    I think Apple's ready to take over the world now. They just need to get us cheap bastards in the boat, and whatever they're going to release will be it.

    Just my cheap idea.

    --
    Berto
  71. It looks just like my old Newton! by rune-bare-rune · · Score: 1

    The interface is very similar to my old Newton PDA, down to the friendly handwriting-type fonts.

    The Newton 2000 series were great machines, but too bulky. It had room for two PCMCIA cards, so there were no limits for what you could put into them. (Yes, people are running 802.11b cards on them)

    Apple has always had a nice sense for details, on the Newton 2000 there was a little hole to park the stylus in a standing position, you could also use the screen cover flap as a stand for the device, handy when using the optional keyboard.

    The videos do look fake though. Oh well.

    (Although the detail with changing the screen orientation seems very... Apple. The Newtons had rotatable screens...)

  72. hey moderator: fuck you by crayz · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Yeah, posts about the iWalk are really off topic in a discussion about the iWalk. I don't even give a shit about karma, but idiot moderators piss me off. So here's a +1 for you to mod down.

    Get ready for metamod, bitch.

  73. why upgrade your palm? by johnpaul191 · · Score: 1

    i have a IIIxe, and still have not felt compelled to upgrade..... i think the only time i really wished i had a color screen was when i actually tried to use the NYC subway map i have. i could use it but there are so many crossing lines that it was a pain. then again i could stuff a little map in my pocket or look at the wall.... so yeah. i realize most of what i do with my palm could be handled by a phone, but i don't see replacing my $250 (when i bought it) Palm IIIxe and $40 kyocera 2035 phone with a $500 combo device (ok, down to $400 now). besides... i just picked up a Palm III gps kit new on ebay for $40, so i have to enjoy that before i upgrade. Palm promises 802.11* and bluetooth as well as other things in their devices this year. maybe i'll be ready to bite in a few months, but right now i like my device that requires new batteries every 2 months. the again if Apple gets back into the PDA market i would be interested. since hopping to OS X i have missed the ability to hotsync (that beta they released is a mess).

  74. ZDNet article/Iwalk by Acoustic_Nowhere · · Score: 1
    this is just irresponsible journalism:
    http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2101964,00. html

    I thought zdnet considered themselves a news organization, not a rumors site. Guess not!

  75. Why Apple Will Stay Away From PDAs by cjsnell · · Score: 2

    [note: obviously, this is just MHO and entirely speculative]

    1) The PDA market is stagnant. Most everybody who was going to buy a PDA has already bought one. PDAs aren't deprecated as quickly as PCs and its not uncommon to keep one for two or three years. (I still have and use my originial Pilot).

    2) PDA prices have fallen through the floor. You can buy a pocket organizer with functionality that's equivalent to a Franklin Day Planner for about $100. I would guess that an Apple PDA would cost around $300-400, more than most every PDA on the market.

    3) The grass is greener elsewhere. The iMac has been hugely profitable for them and the demand for these is strong. If they were to introduce a next-gen iMac (with LCD, etc), they would most likely hit a home run.

    4) Apple has always been an innovator. PDAs are not new. I don't see a lot of room for innovation with them. Recall the Newton. That was an Apple innovation. Nobody had ever really seen a PDA before the Newton. Why would Apple, who abandoned the Newton at the start of the PDA boom, go back to handhelds?

    5) Apple has no true rackmount server offering. If I had to bet, I think we'll see a (relatively) low-cost 1U G4 server that will come in somewhere around $1800-$2000 retail. Who knows...we might even see a 4-way server, as well. (okay, that was wishful thinking, but still...)

    1. Re:Why Apple Will Stay Away From PDAs by gabebear · · Score: 1

      The only problem I see with your logic is that Apples PDA technlogy is soooooo much better then anyone elses. Have you ever used a Newton with OS 2.x? It blows away anything currently on the market. The only problem with the old Newtons is their size. which could be dealt with now.

      It would also retail for much more than $400, I would guess $750-$900 (yep as much as an iMac). The PDA market is stagnant, but if you could make a PDA with the 5gig iPod HD, the interface of a Newton, and an excellent battery life then you would have plenty of users upgreade(remember, people don't need to buy them often, and once they are locked into Apple's iWalk / iPod, what are they going to buy next?), they could even take a lose on the iWalk and make it up on the Macintoshs(They deffinately aren't making much with the iPod, the micro 5 gig drive retails for more than the iPod). http://www.toshiba.com/taecdpd/products/features/M K5002mpl-Over.shtml

      I think an insanely great PDA(proprietarily liked to MacOSX) would sell a lot of G4s.

      Honestly you would only have to soup up the iPods CPU and put a bigger screen to get the hardware for such a device. The iPod currently runs some embeded OS which Apple contracted out.
      http://www.dailymac.com/content/editorials/ipod_fu ture.html

    2. Re:Why Apple Will Stay Away From PDAs by Wiwi+Jumbo · · Score: 1

      4) Apple has always been an innovator. PDAs are not new.

      Yeah, can you imagine if they came out with a MP3 player? That would *SO* be following everybody else....

      --
      Wiwi
      "I trust in my abilities,
      but I want more then they offer"
  76. Re:Did someone hire Sculley back? by Altus · · Score: 1

    Abandond? WebObjects?

    when did this happen...

    --

    "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

  77. Here are Pictures by MontyP · · Score: 2, Informative

    For those who haven't seen it yet... Here are some of the pictures:
    http://www.theapplecollection.com/design/macproto/ iWalk.html

    and..
    http://www.rol.ru/news/it/news/01/10/26_014.htm

    --


    There is no .sig
  78. Re: have a tough NUt to crack--Are you retarded? by geekoid · · Score: 2

    Something tells me you dont get out much

    well, if you where in love with your palm, would you get out much?
    wait, that didn't sound right...

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  79. Wrong weong wrong by Pope · · Score: 1

    MS sold all their Apple stock a few months ago, but I wouldn't expect the average non-Mac fan to know that. It's bad enough that the small they did own led thousands of igonramouses to proclaim that MS "owned" Apple.

    --
    It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
  80. Already Got One by SteveM · · Score: 2

    I hope it's a sexy new laptop which runs Windows and OS X.

    I've already got one. A TiBook (aka PowerBook G4).

    I run Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, Windows 98, and Unix.

    And it is great at attracting flight attendants.

    Steve M

    1. Re:Already Got One by joedames · · Score: 1

      How many physical disks do you have in there? I didn't know linux ppc and x and 9.2 could live on the same HD...
      by saying windows 98, you mean Virtual PC?

    2. Re:Already Got One by dhovis · · Score: 1
      LinuxPPC and X can live on the same disk, but not on the same partition. So you do have to partition your drive, but that is not the end of the world.

      Anyway, he said UNIX, not Linux, and Darwin (the core OS under OSX, and accessible from terminal windows) is UNIX, plain and simple. It is essentially a new flavor of *BSD.

      --

      --
      The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.

    3. Re:Already Got One by Lewisham · · Score: 1

      Running Windows 98 under VPC is cheating :) I want full-on hardware support so I can play games! Hmmmm, what if the announcement is that OS X will soon fully support Direct X or something like that? Gaming on a TiBook...Mmmmmm... *dream dream*

    4. Re:Already Got One by joedames · · Score: 1

      OSX is not Unix. It is Mach. It uses BSD style port handling but the majority of the VM et al is handled by Mach. Mach is not Unix, so, no OSX is not Unix.

    5. Re:Already Got One by dhovis · · Score: 1
      You really don't know what you are talking about.

      What is UNIX? It has nothing to do with what kernel you use. Darwin (which runs under MacOS X) is certified as UNIX by the Open Group (which owns the UNIX trademark). Darwin is POSIX complient and you can run XWindows on it. From the prosepective of a program running in the userland, it is UNIX, and that is what matters. You could take the Linux kernel and substitute a different userland (i.e., not the GNU userland) and make an OS which would not be considered UNIX.

      Heck, MacOS X is binary compatible with LinuxPPC. If you can run the same binary on Linux and MacOS X, how can you tell it is not UNIX.

      Go back under your bridge you troll.

      --

      --
      The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.

    6. Re:Already Got One by joedames · · Score: 1

      Well, I can tell it's not UNIX because GNU stands for "GNU's not UNIX". BSD is not UNIX, it is UNIX-like. Darwin is BSD. Therefore... what?!? OSX is not UNIX? And once you you consider Cocoa and Aqua on top of it, I don't even really consider it a useable BSD. Darwin is a useable BSD, OSX not really, and I've tried.

  81. I still have my Newton... by newbob · · Score: 1
    ...I wonder if I'll be silly enough to give Apple another try?

    (Though this Newton was comp'd. Apple gave 'em out like candy near the end. I should sell it on eBay!)

    1. Re:I still have my Newton... by ShmakDown · · Score: 1
      I still have my newton too. Altho the screen is all busted up... :( But the newtons were awsome. I remember buying one for just 100$ when I was in high school. Most pda's today still aren't that cheap.

      Jim

      --
      WeFunk
  82. Lessons for Slashdot readers by sulli · · Score: 1
    Look at this reply. Everyone should learn from this AC's comment:

    Still05
    Whatever.
    Still06
    Beta software.
    Still07
    Whatever.
    Still08
    Whining.

    Why respond in detail when you can comment like this?ây

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  83. Patch OS9 by Pope · · Score: 1
    I damn well hope they continue to patch OS 9! It's the "Classic" environment on OS X that many folks still need to run older programs, and for people like me who still aren't convinced to move to X full time.

    Sure X is all nice and buzzword-compliant, but when it comes to my everyday use, 9 works just fine and dandy.

    --
    It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
  84. Why is this posted here? by Aqua+OS+X · · Score: 1

    This is something that should be posted to MOSR.com or something.

    Moreover, I recall seeing these iWalk photos earlier. They are obviouse fakes and they were made by some 13 year old mac user.

    they have been on the net for days and Apple legal has not pulled them. That means a lot.

    --
    "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
  85. Unless you consider it a plant by Pfhor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apple acknowledged the rumor sites. Maybe it is feeding them not full correct information. Something like the iWalk from Apple is a very big thing indeed, but as it has been mentioned before, Apple claims the keynote "Beyond the rumor sites. Way beyond."

    Look at all the more probable rumors right now: LCD iMac, PowerMac G5, iWalk, possible iBook updates, continual server / big iron rumors. Friend and I were talking about it last night. What if Apple released a bunch of stuff. All of the above (but a not lame version of the iWalk) along with a co-branded items from Sony. Here is the scenario: iWalk type thing is a $250 PDA with color screen, firewire, built in wireless (802.11b card capped at 2mbits, for power saving), 64 megs of ram. Can be jacked into an iPod and use it for storage. iPod price drops to $350. Now for $600 you can get the most kick ass pda/mp3 player on the market, and they work seamlessly with each other. Sony has a digital camera out with firewire on it, that works fine with the iWalk/iPod. Apple has been talking about the "digital hub" design for a while now, they could in one great keynote, announce all the key component blocks and unite them.

    Apple has been hinting towards the digital hub setup, but most of the time saying this is what you can also use ____ for. But now they could say "here is a complete digital hub / lifestyle solution" that works seamlessly. tv components with firewire / wireless, PDAs that can control them, etc. Apple doesn't make all of them, apple just co brands them.

    Whatever is going to be announced the 7th is going to be big. the tru7th will be revealed. I'm just glad I have planned to visit the Apple store near by the 12th and play with whatever has been announced (as they should have the new toys out to play with by then).

    1. Re:Unless you consider it a plant by kilgore_47 · · Score: 1

      Apple's never been keen on co-branding stuff. It's a fun theory though... Oh well, we can put all our speculation to rest in a few days anyway. (and with the kind of stuff they've written on the front of apple.com they better not let us down this time!)

      --
      ___
      The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
    2. Re:Unless you consider it a plant by Pfhor · · Score: 1

      I was thinking of it more like Apple and Sony work out a way to seamlessly integrate their periphs. Sony sells their digital cameras with a big Apple sticker on the box, or something of that nature.

    3. Re:Unless you consider it a plant by zaffir · · Score: 1

      The only problem with that logic is that Sony has their own line of PDAs, dubbed Clie (i don't know how to get the accent thing above the e, but there should be one). I have one on my desk right now. I do like the 802.11b idea though. I'd kill for that on my Clie.

      --
      "Upon attaching the waterblock to my penis, I began to notice that I know nothing about computers." -- JRockway
    4. Re:Unless you consider it a plant by jchristopher · · Score: 2, Troll
      Here is the scenario: iWalk type thing is a $250 PDA

      Perhaps you didn't read carefully enough. This device is made by APPLE.

    5. Re:Unless you consider it a plant by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      yeah, they'll NEVER learn how to sell a product for less than it costs them to make it. Which is probably why Apple Computer is still profitable while IBM lost $1Bn on desktop computers last year and Gateway retreated back to the USA. In many ways, Apple just paved the way for the iPaq with the Newton (and how much do THEY cost?). Shame, but the Newton had to go if Apple were to survive - that kind of tough decision is EXACTLY what CEOs are there to take.

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    6. Re:Unless you consider it a plant by mr100percent · · Score: 1

      The iPod's hard drvie itself costs $400US, so you're getting a discount for the drive with an enclosure, battery, and nice interface.

    7. Re:Unless you consider it a plant by Brendor · · Score: 1

      I think he's on the right track. But the iWalk is definitely not one of the new products. In terms of apple feeding misleading information that's on the right track, I think a handwriting reckognition enabled tablet PC is much closer to the truth - especially when LCD order and consumer electronics rumors are taken into account.

  86. os x on a newton by simpl3x · · Score: 2, Interesting

    god i loved my newton! and this thing will supposedly run a version of osx. a real terminal on a hand-held.

  87. Re:Nothing new by no_such_user · · Score: 2

    What about the clone manufacturers? Power Computing, and the others, were left out in the cold - it's no wonder why Apple has litle respect outside the art community.

    I'm still bitter that the Newton was killed, but not as bitter as the large number of developers, most of them independent, who got the shaft. Worse yet, Apple claimed the project was completely dead, and then refused to sell off the OS to interested (albeit small) parties.

    Apple, RELEASE OSX SHELL FOR LINUX!

  88. Re:Nothing new by proxima · · Score: 2

    When MS releases a new OS, the patches stop for the old ones. Sorry, free patches.

    Bull. MS just this year stopped supporting Windows 95, and patches are available for 98, ME, and 2000. They are free. The old patches for Windows 95 are still available for free, but if any new major bugs are discovered they will go unfixed by MS. But that OS is 6 years old, I can't exactly blame them.

    --
    "The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
  89. SPAM ALERT!! - same one I got! by mr.ska · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So much for having to register... they gave me the EXACT same userid and password. It's just an e-mail grab!! Suck the Mac community in, the their e-mail addresses to they can spam them later...

    --

    Mr. Ska

  90. What's Woz playing with? by artemis67 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here are some more pictures to fuel the fire... Steve Wozniak playing with a device that looks very similar to the mystery unit...

    -----

    1. Re:What's Woz playing with? by WaccaWacca · · Score: 1

      A Gameboy Pocket(TM), obviously.

    2. Re:What's Woz playing with? by jandrese · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That mystery unit looks suspiciously like a Game Boy to me. I think Woz was enjoying a bit of Tetris. :)

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    3. Re:What's Woz playing with? by blamanj · · Score: 2

      It's cleanly not a PDA. Not enough screen space. It looks more like a TV.

    4. Re:What's Woz playing with? by ptrourke · · Score: 1

      Karma whore. This has been all over the Mac rumors sites, and everyone agrees that it's a GameBoy Gold.

  91. Real Product, Fake Videos? by Tom7 · · Score: 2


    I think those videos are fudged. (Take a careful look at sayhello and watch the screen stay steady as the unit shakes...)

    But that doesn't mean that the product isn't real. How many demos have we all fudged in our time? It's possible that the screen doesn't take well to video recording, and that they needed something to wow people at MacExpo.

    If the whole thing is a fake, then, well... damn, that's a nice hoax.

    1. Re:Real Product, Fake Videos? by ptrourke · · Score: 1

      It's possible that the screen doesn't take well to video recording, and that they needed something to wow people at MacExpo.

      All video screens don't take well to video recording, unless you have some method of synching the object video's frame rate with the camera's.

      If it's a Newton X, that would be very, very nice; but I'm expecting the big news to be an iMac X.

    2. Re:Real Product, Fake Videos? by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      you've obviously never shot an LCD in your life then - because they shoot just beautifully. The only real problem you face with LCDs is controlling Moire patterns. And WTF is an iMac X? If it's an iMac running OSX, then they do that already.

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
  92. This really is not difficult... by WaccaWacca · · Score: 1

    If Apple image leaks are real, Apple sue straight away. If they are not real, they don't. Apple haven't sued, the pictures are fake. Remember this rule for the future. It never fails.

  93. iPod evolution by Genady · · Score: 2

    I'm not saying that there photos aren't faked. Let's think about what this could mean though.

    I got an iPod for christmas, and I'm already using it quite a bit. Both as an MP3 player, as well as for shuttling files from work the home and back. It's great for that type of thing. Download the latest patches at work and take them home on the iPod.

    One thing i did try, was exporting my wife's addressbook to LDIF and transferring it to my iBook. I wasn't all that successful, but it got me thinking. I've already got this cool stripped down iTunes, wouldn't it be cool to be able to take the whole address book thing with me in a form factor the size of the iPod?

    That's why the iWalk is so appealing. You can fit a 5 GB drive in that space, along with a decent tft display, with enough cache battery life should be good. If they could squeeze a low power 802.11 chip in there....

    This could be something like what PDA's SHOULD be like. The microdrive and low power 802.11 could revolutionize the whole industry. And just think it (would|could) be all built on top of a BSD kernel.

    I dearly hope that Apple decides to do something like this. With the iPod they've shown us how an MP3 player SHOULD work. Easy, quick, and with a decent memory. The iPod IS insanely great, despite what others will say to drag it down. Something like the iWalk would just continue that tradition.

    --


    What if it is just turtles all the way down?
  94. Re:Did someone hire Sculley back? by bnenning · · Score: 2
    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.


    WebObjects is definitely not abandoned. Although you have my sympathy if you bought a deployment license for $50k before it was reduced to $700.

    --
    How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
  95. This one is a fake by flollywebfrog · · Score: 1

    This one is an admitted fake but looks more likely and exciting to me...

    --


    ________________
    All my sig are fjdklafjkldafjkldafdaklf
  96. What convinced me.. by D_Fresh · · Score: 2, Interesting
    There's no trademark for iWalk under Apple's name anywhere. Try it yourself. Note that "iPod" appeared as a trademark on October 18, 2001 - not long before that device was announced.

    Apple is very good about trademarking their brands. If this product even exists, it's a sure bet it's not called the "iWalk." And there's nothing else (aside from "Gigawire", which seems unlikely) that even suggests a PDA among the Apple trademarks.

    Thank God.

    --

    Was that out loud?
  97. Re: have a tough NUt to crack--Are you retarded? by Bowie+J.+Poag · · Score: 1

    Send me your email address, Mr. Anonodumbass Coward, and i'll send you a photo, straight from the Arizona desert. Hurry up, its 10 AM here.. Itll be especially easy since both my digital camera and my iPaq both take Compact Flash memory.

    --
    Bowie J. Poag

  98. Re:Apple Hype - the reverse? by iainl · · Score: 1

    Particularly given our anonymous collegue's reminder about how Apple make money with hardware, not software, if you're going to wildly speculate how about wondering if they could do an x86 version of a Cube-alike? I'd certainly pay over the odds for a nice looking box that still let me play Half Life.

    More seriously, I'd love to see ATI lose the 'default graphics card' hat to be replaced with a nice shiny NVidia GeForce 3 based model in the new machines. That would make for interesting times, and a head-on argument with Microsoft.

    --
    "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  99. audio in by regexp · · Score: 2

    What use is an audio in port on a PDA? The only application I can think of that would use the port would be voice recording, which would require a lot of memory. Seems like it wouldn't be worth the cost of including the port on such a device. (Powerbooks don't even have audio in)

    1. Re:audio in by option8 · · Score: 2

      no, but the newton did. it had (or has, if you still have one) a built-in microphone. and it had all of 4 megs (more or less, depending on whcih version you had)

      voice recording is a major feature if you ask a newton user, and i'd be disappointed myself if there wasn't some way to do it in a new apple PDA

      a built-in mic would be preferable if all you're doing is taking voice notes, but a real audio-in could capture music and anything else you can plug in, so that's an improvement (i guess)

      --
      - Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
    2. Re:audio in by Mike+Buddha · · Score: 2

      voice recording is a major feature if you ask a newton user

      Pure crap. Voice recording didn't come along until the last (and poorest selling) Newton, the 2000. It wasn't even an issue when I bought my 130. It was never seen as a 'killer app' and is overblown these days.

      --
      by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
    3. Re:audio in by option8 · · Score: 2

      whatever. i'm a newton user, and i think it's an important feature. i use it all the time to record snippets of meetings, songs, ideas, etc.

      the killer app for the newt was always its handwriting recognition, even when it didn't work, everything else was secondary to the interface and the HWR

      --
      - Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
  100. SCSI by No-op · · Score: 3, Offtopic

    I should point out that 'gigabit' SCSI would be 125Mbyte/sec, well below the current speed holders (the Ultra3 standard at 160MByte/sec, and the upcoming Ultra320 at 320MByte/sec.)

    For what it's worth in the real datahauling business, firewire is a laugh :)

    --
    EOM
  101. iWalk Cameos? by mackman · · Score: 2

    Maybe when Nelson jots down "Beat of Martin" on an iWalk, it won't translate it to "Eat up Martha."

  102. iWalk? by JayDiggity · · Score: 1

    iWalk? Well, ok.... and once Apple releases the next version with a faster processor, will it be the iRun? the iJog?

  103. Jobs unveils the iMouse by grafikhugh · · Score: 1

    The first of its kind. With duel button technology and jog dial.

    --
    The Surgeon General says sigs are bad for me.
  104. trademarks? think different. by option8 · · Score: 2

    people are falling all over themselves to make clear that apple doesn't have "iWalk" trademarked or whatnot.. maybe that's just the leaked name.

    remember Apple still owns all the trademarks and copyrights to the Newton and the Newton OS.

    though the new product (if it's indeed the real mccoy) likely has no roots at all in the venerable ol' Newt, it may still carry the name. who knows? stranger things have happened in cupertino...

    --
    - Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
  105. What about the emails? by Harv · · Score: 1

    It may be a fake PDA, it may not. We'll find out in a few days.

    But here's a slightly paranoid thought: why does this German website need to register visitors before showing the videos and pics? Is it just a way to keep Apple Legal out, or to moderate server load, or are they harvesting emails for some other marketing purpose? I used an alias user ID address to my domain, like I used to do with those solitication cards that fall out of magazines.

    I'm real curious to see who is going to start sending more spam to my fake "iWalk" user ID.

  106. Nuts! by SpotBug · · Score: 1


    Nevermind, I was tricked. That's a hacked image. Doh!

    --
    cygnuhchur
  107. heres a mirror... by Mindjiver · · Score: 1

    HandWrite.mov
    iWalkBoot.mov
    TurnaRound.mov

    Lets see my connection go up in flames.. =)

    --
    I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
  108. no PalmOS? by nsfmc · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I don't understand how creating a proprietary OS for a possibly nonexistent handheld helps apple at all. For ease of use, i expect that the device should at least run PalmOS programs because it seems like it'd be very stupid to exclude users' ability to run a majority of the programs that already exist for the PDA market unless apple wants to devote time to pda program development. It seems like a bad idea to worry about that from a corporate perspective and i think that apple, very well aware of the pda glut, would be wise to offer a better alternative to a Palm instead of a replacement for the Palm.

  109. Reasons there will never be an OS X for x86. by hotsauce · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There will never be an OS X for x86, for all the reasons explained here.

    --
    Lies about crimes
    1. Re:Reasons there will never be an OS X for x86. by JWW · · Score: 1

      That may be true, but I would consider OS X for x86, "Way beyond the hype."

      In fact, I think it could be the only thing that would be "way beyond the hype."

  110. Movies seem fishy. by nobodyman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Admittedly I'm a conspiracy theorist, but with one hoax after another, I've become a bit gunshy. Some points:

    -Okay, about 7 seconds into bootup.mov, the guy starts turning the jog dial... for about 4-5 frames, his finger is turning the jog dial, but the Apple logo on the dial *ISN'T TURNING* as well. Then all of a sudden on frame 6, the Apple logo appears rotated 20 degrees. At first I thought it could be a simple glitch in the compressed video, but the guys hand which should be moving in sync with the jog dial does not suffer the same glitch. It seems like somebody spliced to pieces of video together. Why?

    -There's a video of the guy handling the device(picking it up, flipping it over, etc..) and videos of him using the device (turning it on, writing on the screen), but no videos of him handling *and* moving the device. Bluescreening would be a pain in the ass if the device were moving.

    -This point is purely an ergonomic issue, but wouldn't you constantly be moving the jog dial if you were holding the thing in your left hand and writing with the stylus with your right hand?

    If it is a hoax, spymac.com definitely had their hand in it.. but why would a rumor site cash in credibility in the future for 15 minutes of fame? I guess we'll all find out in a few days.

    1. Re:Movies seem fishy. by Triv · · Score: 1

      why would a rumor site cash in credibility in the future for 15 minutes of fame?

      I guarantee you that no one's going to remember this little ploy - no one really remembered the last time they tried to pull this off, and no one really thinks any less of them.

      Apple rumor sites are common, and everybody takes them with a grain of salt. It's just interesting, and fun. Ok, so they claim it's fact. Big deal. The bottom line is that no one's really going to know what's going on till the keynote address. Till then, it's no holds barred.

      I think we all need to lighten up a bit. :)

      Triv

  111. Movies look faked. by scaramush · · Score: 1
    Does it strike anyone else that those movies look utterly faked? Watch the writing demo -- the movement of the pen is not in synch with the letters appearing on the device. Also, the device being rotated looks an awful lot like a Visor Edge. Add in the button from an iPod and Viola!

    I'm not saying Apple will NEVER release a PDA. I just don't think this is one of them. Now, whether or not they'll be introducing a flat panel iMac at MacWorld, or whether we'll be getting G5s, now those are interesting questions...

    --
    "...you can steal my woman, but you ain't done nuthin' smart."
    1. Re:Movies look faked. by zephc · · Score: 2

      thats not an iPod button

      also, the slightly-behind effect is common on PDAs, at least the Newts, while it drew the pixels and figured out what letter was drawn.

      still, its prolly a fake =\

      --
      "I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
  112. Re:delightful.....yes, it is(?) by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 2

    I don't think that the clone vendors were even given enough time to expand the market.

    Wasn't Motorola spending 100M$ to retrofit a factory to make Mac clones? I don't remember Motorola even getting a chance to sell any under their licence. This was one of the things that strained the Motorola / Apple relationship.

  113. 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
  114. Re:delightful.....yes, it is(?) by ek_adam · · Score: 1

    Motorola made the StarMax Macintosh clones. I've got one of the 166MHz 601 machines. One interesting note, they came with a five year warrantee.

  115. Movies and Pictures mirrored by kilgore_47 · · Score: 1

    Spymac seems to be holding up under the slashdotting, but if you don't want to "register" with them you can get it from my geocities mirror here.

    (hey it's not karma whoring once you hit 50, right?)

    --
    ___
    The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
    1. Re:Movies and Pictures mirrored by kilgore_47 · · Score: 2

      OK that lasted less than a couple minutes...
      I didn't realize geocities limited bandwidth THAT much. Sorry.

      --
      ___
      The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
  116. Re:Nothing new by ProfKyne · · Score: 1

    They came out with a new OS and are still upgrading the old one. Since OS X came out, they have done 3 patches on OS 9. When MS releases a new OS, the patches stop for the old ones. Sorry, free patches.

    Those patches were released to contribute to compatibility with OS 9. Apple will no longer support OS 9 after March 2002, but they'd be fools if they didn't continue to support OS 9 while 3rd parties scramble to finish their Carbon ports.

    The difference between MS and Apple in this case is that MS doesn't introduce new operating systems based on Unix, which require a complete overhaul of every application. Or maybe Apple just cares a little bit more about their customers' satisfaction with their products.

    --
    "First you gotta do the truffle shuffle."
  117. Re:who cares? move on and think like the commercia by thenerd · · Score: 1

    ...a small footprint rules engine...

    Whenever I hear people banging on about rules I become cagey! Please please tell me why you would want this? What use do you have for it?

    thenerd.

    --
    The camels are coming. I'm in love.
  118. if this is true... by markj02 · · Score: 2
    The device has a great screen compared to any other PDA around, and it seems to work well held horizontally. The rest of the engineering seems a little more dubious: jog dials are horrible from a usability point of view (what is it with Apple and lousy input devices?), the device can't make up its mind whether it wants to be horizontal or vertical, and whether free handwriting recognition is the way to go seems questionable given the history of the Newton and the Palm.

    Whether this makes it may depend entirely on the software. If it runs a stripped-down version of OSX, it stands a chance. If it runs yet another oddball proprietary system, it will likely fail.

    I think there is a good chance it's real. Video is harder to fake, and this is the kind of device Apple would produce: nice looking, great in some ways, giving the appearance of being intuitive ("natural handwriting"), and so-so in other ways. A fake video would probably have gone overboard on features. If it's fake, kudos to the creators: they did a good job with whatever they did.

  119. 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."
  120. Re:Nothing new by sdriver · · Score: 1

    WHAT?!?!

    Don't forget the LISA!!!

  121. 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.

  122. Let's add to the rumor pile... by Conesus · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Of course, being an avid Mac fan, there is just one more device to add to the list of Mac rumors...

    It's the iPad! You may have seen this baby before, but it is definately something I personally would love to see, except for the fact that it might just break easily, you can find pictures and specs here:

    The iPad with specs.

    True? Doubtfully, but it would definately be excellant.

    1GHz, 133 MHz bus, 256 MB to 1 GB RAM
    38 to 80 GB hard drive, DVD/CD-R combo drive
    Touch-sensitive pen-driven 14" TFT
    nVidia AGP 4X [not with ATI anymore?] with 32MB
    2 FireWire, 4 USB, Gigabit Ethernet
    [here's a hell of a kicker] Integrated Webcam and Microsoft
    Airport and BlueTooth included.

    As they say, Your home, wherever.

    --

    Don't eat your soul to fill your belly.
    conesus.com
  123. Re:Did someone hire Sculley back? by flwombat · · Score: 1

    Maybe he meant that he (or his employer) abandoned it. Not sure why though; it works awfully well for certain types of web applications. We use it for an online app that pulls from a number of disparate databases, creates html and pdf documents, etc. It's nice. Of course, we get the academic version for $99.

    --
    ---------
    get your war on
  124. What? by autopr0n · · Score: 2

    Xerox did sue apple over the mac, but they lost.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
  125. Interesting by ptrourke · · Score: 1

    This is apparently part of an ad - see Macrumors for more details.

  126. Now you're just being silly by Bob+Abooey · · Score: 1
    Really.

    The analogy I would make would be one of a electric screwdriver. If you are going to make one of those you might as well add a little switch to make it reversable too, and maybe one for different speeds/torque too. Your silly two headed hammer anlogoy is a Mac pundits admission of defeat.

    Lets think about it, your simulating the right click by using a mouse and a keyboard combination, which is more confusing and troublesome than a simple right mouse click, so I would say that the design of the one button mouse is flawed. So yes, design is important and the one button mouse is a bad/flaweddesign.

    --

    All the best,
    --Bob

    1. Re:Now you're just being silly by Electric+Angst · · Score: 1

      Wait. Just because the key+click option exists, doesn't mean it's used. I know many, many Mac users who either don't know about it or realize that they don't need it. The Mac team realized that after becoming accustomed to a handicapped system, some users would need something to ease their transition into a better, more elegant system. They were able to accomplish this without ruining the near-perfection of their user interface.

      So let me reiterate:

      I have a mouse.
      The mouse has a button.
      That is all.

      --
      Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
  127. Re:Nothing new by zephc · · Score: 2

    The Cube was discontinued, not dropped (i.e. abandoned), All the software that is being developed for the Mac still works fine, and will work fine for years.

    --
    "I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
  128. Good Link about Why it's Prolly a Fake by ShmakDown · · Score: 1
    MacSlash has a good bullet point criteque of the 'iWalk' story.

    Apparently SpyMac has done some fakes before, and some mac addicts don't like the way this story smells.

    Jim

    --
    WeFunk
  129. Unix PDA with Newton HWR? !!!!!!!!! by swdev · · Score: 1

    Hey! Amongst all the rumours, just remember, if it IS what it seems to be... This thing ROCKS!

    As a disillusioned newton developer, I can say this would be the device I wished for all along.

    Looking at the shots, that looks more like OS X than any previous OS. The notepad, however, looks like a pretty straight port of the newton's notepad app (note the titlebar separating a scrolling list of notes; and the icon - date-time stamp - title - bar motif). I'd read before that OS X would have the flexibility as a UI to accomodate a more handheld focused application. I'm hoping this is it. :-)

    God Bless!
    --p
    Patrick Curtain, Husband & Father (i also write software)

    --
    Patrick Curtain, Husband & Father ( i also write software )
  130. What the hell kind of name is 'Iwalk'? by foqn1bo · · Score: 1


    Does anyone else here wonder if Apple mixed up the project sheets for their respective products before release? I mean, if you think about it, 'Ipod' would be a great name for a PDA, and 'Iwalk' would be a kick ass name for a music player...you know, like 'WALKMAN'. Makes me wonder if they pulled a Capcom (For those of you who remember Street Fighter II), and switched the names at the last minute in threat of lawsuit instead of coming up with new ones. Hm.

  131. Wearable Mac? by RobynTryst · · Score: 1
    As a keen Apple fan, I've been reading the speculation with great interest, and I have another possibility that hasn't been suggested in great depth.

    Most of the suggestions thus far have been of three flavors, summarized here in (my opinion of) order of likelyhood:

    Something that goes in front of the couch

    1. The digital lifestyle product, perhaps similar to the
    2. Nokia Media Terminal, perhaps with a DVD burner to save your home videos and recorded programs

    Something that goes in your pocket

    1. A PDA or perhaps a portable digital media device, like the iPod with a large color screen. I miss my Newton!

    An upgrade

    1. Flat panel iMacs, a really fast G5, etc. this would be disappointing, given the hype


    However, my suggestion is that it might be something a bit more radical: a wearable computer. I've seen some devices, particularly at the recent Tech-U-Wear conference, that might be nearly ready for prime time, most notable the Hitachi/Xybernaut Poma - a very nice looking product.

    Imagine something similar in size to the Poma - which, interestingly, the iPod is close to - running either a slimmed-down OSX or something new, an analogue to the Palm OS for wearable computing. Add to that a small wearable display with headphones. The jog dial on the iPod has already been a solution in wearable computing, it's quite an unobtrusive way to control access to data, or perhaps Apple could include some new user input device.

    There's been some talk in the Mac fanatic sites (sorry, no link) suggesting that the iPod has unused outputs on the headphone jack and an empty space inside the box. Perhaps the wearable display could be an accessory for the (existing or new model) iPod! The only problem I can see with this thought is that the iPod appears to have no sensible expansion method, and you would want to add stuff to a wearable (wireless network, cell phone, GPS, etc.) Can firewire be used for that? (Oh, yeah, and the iPod doesn't have a belt clip :-)

    The wearable computing industry agrees for the most part that the technology is just about ready for the mainstream, or at least close enough for a mass market announcement. All that is missing right now is a bit of development, a slick user interface and, most important, a killer app - all of which Apple is capable of providing. It would be just Apple's style to create wearable computing for the rest of us!
  132. Site down .... by ericsante · · Score: 1

    We I finally decided to check out the movies and it looks as if the page is gone.....

  133. iWalk not a registered tradmark? by metasim · · Score: 1

    I may not be searching for it right, but I couldn't find any references to iWalk in in the US Trademark Electornic Search System, but iPod is there. I don't have any experience in product development, so I don't know if this means anything. I guess they could file the trademark the day of announcement.....

  134. Re: have a tough NUt to crack--Are you retarded? by JLester · · Score: 1

    My iPaq display works as well in the sunlight as in the dark, so you are mistaken there. I think the others may have problems in direct light, but not the Compaq.

    --
    "FORMAT C:" - Kills bugs dead!
  135. Is this real? Is it the new Newton? by aussersterne · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If this thing *is* real and it's based on the same software technology as the Newton MessagePad line, it's worth $1,000+ to me as a PDA, easily. I'm using a Newton 2100 right now -- I finally re-invested in one at eBay prices ($250 or so) and I will be using it forever as far as I'm concerned.

    I had a Newton MessagePad back in the mid '90s and it got killed by a falling phone (screen smashed). At that point, I went to Palm. After a while using Palm, I switched to Windows CE. It still didn't seem right. Then I bought a full pen-based PC last year and ran Linux+xscribble on it. These other PDAs and pen-based computers were all just wrong.

    When it came right down to it, the Newton *software* and NewtonOS was what I was missing. Nothing else yet manufactured comes close for the PDA paradigm. The hardware is a little bulky, and is expensive for its age, but I finally just broke down and bought a Newton 2100 last year to see if the Newton magic was still there...

    And it was like a revelation. I hadn't really appreciated my early Newton as well as I could have... It was my first PDA, it was early technology, and all I could do at the time was see things wrong with it. It's only after using other PDA devices for a while that I realized just how important and wonderful NewtonOS was and just how sad that it was discontinued.

    If Apple DOES ever release another PDA, I pray that it will use NewtonOS technology. If instead Apple goes with Palm or some such nonsense, I hope to God that they release the NewtonOS code for StrongARM as open-source so that we don't have to try to copy it ourselves. Imagine a modern, open PDA hardware platform running open-source NewtonOS!

    As for right now... I've stocked up on several Newton 2100 machines which will hopefully last me well into the century. I've taken to hand-replacing their dimming backlights and manually repacking their rechargeable battery packs just to get them running well again. At least for the next few years, it looks like we will be dominated by weak software like Palm and Windows CE -- only the few lucky (like me) who are aware of what has gone before and can maintain the machines will be able to depend on something as advanced as NewtonOS for our information.

    --
    STOP . AMERICA . NOW
  136. Re:delightful.....yes, it is(?) by Cadre · · Score: 2

    Adding to the interesting notes about StarMax's:

    The way you upgraded the CPU in the StarMax (the CPU it comes with is welded to the motherboard) was by removing the cache on the motherboard and inserting a CPU daughterboard into it. Now that is a hack.

    --
    All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.
  137. Pretty sure it's a fake. by pressman · · Score: 1

    I watched the vidoes pretty carefully last evening. Some of the shadows don't really match what should be casting them. The text stays stationary on the screen even while the user moved the iWalk around a little as he is writing.

    It's a pretty good fake if you ask me. I can only hope that this really exists. It looks pretty damn snazzy.

    --
    Pooty tweet
  138. Alternate source of iwalk picture... by Casal · · Score: 1

    can be found at http://www.theapplecollection.com/design/macproto/ iWalk.html.

  139. Remember the last Spy Mac iWalk? by beefstu01 · · Score: 1

    If you don't, then let me remind you. They posted a rendered PDA and said it was the "next big thing." What was it really?... The iPod. Personally I think it's a hoax, but the only the future can tell.

  140. hehe.. busted!! by bo0push3r · · Score: 1

    look at this picture the screen image is tilted. perhaps more importantly, that poorly superimposed reflection is not mirroring the hand hovering above the screen.

    /me pishaws..

    -j0nah

  141. iLame by stylewagon · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one that thinks that calling something an iWalk is extremely lame?

    If indeed Apple have decided to get back into the PDA market right now (which I seriously doubt) I *seriously* doubt they will give it a name as lame as the iWalk. Surely you guys can think of something better than that.

    I'm still getting over the laughing chest pains suffered when the last iWalk photos were 'leaked'.

    --

    *** I am the real stylewagon

  142. Re:Looks real enough to me... by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

    no, I totally disagree with you. The MORE amateurish the picture looks, they more likely it is to be real. Grab an APS compact camera, point it roughly at your subject and bang off a few shots - you'll get flash-overexposed, deeply shadowed, badly composed shots JUST like the G4 redesign pics were. Don't forget that when OSX.org was running the G4 pics, SpyMac ran their idiotic iWalk pics. OSX.org got a cease & desist - Spymac didn't. Guess who turned out to have the goods...

    --
    That was classic intercourse!
  143. GUI Standard by stylewagon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    1. Do you seriously think that with all the effort Apple has been putting into GUI conformity in OSX that they would at least try and keep the GUI at least similar (if this thing is indeed real - which it isn't) to the OSX look-n-feel.

    2. Also, I severely doubt that they would make their own browser - that looks like a whole lot like iTunes... If they had gone to the trouble of producing such a browser - why isn't it included with OSX now?

    3. Also the widgets at the bottom of the screen look much to similar to those used by the linux Sharp Zaurus.

    4. Apple would never put a big cheesey logo on the front of the thing. Does the iPod have a huge logo on the front?

    Think Different, Think Minimalist.

    --

    *** I am the real stylewagon

  144. talk of fakes and whether this is real Apple? by pwagland · · Score: 2

    # whois iwalk.com Registrant: Puget Sound Network, inc. 1521 Queen Anne Ave. N Suite H Seattle, WA 98109 US Domain Name: IWALK.COM [...] Record Created on 08-Apr-1997. [...] --- So they definitely do not have the domain name, and have not for a while.....Amusing site though. Almost has an apple feel about (think about the think different campaign....)

  145. 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.

    I mirrored the movie at:
    http://www.secuchat.com/beatle/nowalk.mov

    Philipp

  146. [ot] Re:It's a fake and here is why by msouth · · Score: 2

    lol, nice one.

    --
    Liberty uber alles.
  147. good businesses know when to quit by markj02 · · Score: 2
    If something isn't working, it makes a lot of sense for a company to get out of the business.

    When it comes to software, however, to keep past customers happy, it also makes sense to release the software open source when the company stops developing it commercially. WebObjects, however, is still being sold by Apple.

  148. Re killing the newton... by msouth · · Score: 2
    I don't know if its a fake or not, but Apple's got to feel stupid for discontinuing the Newton right before Palm did so well (considering Palm wrote Graffiti for the Newton at the time).

    I know it looks like this. Nobody that had a Newton could believe it, either. I have an eMate, and it's painful to look at it and think that it never got a chance, because it is one incredibe machine.

    But one day I talked to a buddy of mine that interned for Apple. He heard that when Fred Anderson (I think that's the guy) came on as CFO, he found out (after he signed on) that Apple had one month's worth of cash in the bank. THe Newton project bled cash, by all accounts. I don't think there was much of a choice. I think the reason they didn't sell it cheap was because they did believe in it so strongly, but that's just a random opinion (as opposed to the other, which is a good, solid, second-hand rumor).

    --
    Liberty uber alles.
    1. Re:Re killing the newton... by mbourgon · · Score: 2
      Two things, briefly:
      1. The multi-connector for the 2x00 was on the top, not the bottom. And it wound up being kinda useful... a couple people have turned it into an Audio in/out jack.
      2. The Newton project was irrelevant to Anderson; they'd already spun it off, and Newton Inc (?) had several sales already lined up; Apple killed a lot of their momentum since no-one knew if Apple (or the Newton) would even be around. Once they had been spun off, things looked really good for the Newt. Why Apple spun them back in is an unknown to this day.

      --
      "Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
    2. Re:Re killing the newton... by msouth · · Score: 2

      well, clearly you followed it more closely than I did. thanks for the clarification. I had completely forgotten about the spinoff/reabsorption, so I'm clearly not the one to ask :).

      At one point I heard that that Jobs took an eMate home and fell in love with it. My recollection of this rumor was that it had something to do with one of the seemingly inexplicable moves. However, for all I know this is out of sync with the actual timeline as well. Have you heard this one?

      --
      Liberty uber alles.
    3. Re:Re killing the newton... by mbourgon · · Score: 2

      No problemo. *grin*

      I hadn't heard about Steve liking the emate, though I wouldn't be surprised. The emate was brilliant in its own way, even compared to the Newton-in-its-case-with-keyboard.

      I still fondly reminisce about the 2-week work trip where my laptop wouldn't dial in, so I used my Newton to get all my Lotus Notes email (using Cadenza), having it open Word Documents, sending in my Expense Report (based off their Excel Spreadsheet, imported into Newton Works), etc, etc.

      --
      "Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
    4. Re:Re killing the newton... by MikeBabcock · · Score: 2

      There are a lot of mailing list messages (search for NTLK) about the spin-off, spin-in of Newton Inc. on the Internet if you look. I don't remember precisely but I have a feeling it goes along with that old Apple mentality that wouldn't allow something to be successful without "Apple" on the front. If the Newton was going to do well, it would do it with the Apple brand on it.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
  149. AppleTurns is the voice of reason, once again by blindauer · · Score: 1

    As the Apple Turns has some pretty compelling arguments on why this is probably a hoax (albeit a very well done one).

    --
    --Bradley
  150. Apple Keynote by Banjonardo · · Score: 1

    The new product they're making is not a PDA. I have my sources........DAMN! I was gonna link to the segfault iToast, but it appears to be down.this
    should do it for now.

    --

    -----

    Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton

  151. Re:Now you're just being a luddite by Bob+Abooey · · Score: 1
    They were able to accomplish this without ruining the near-perfection of their user interface.

    So, I have this model T car. It has an engine. It gets me where I want to go. That is all.

    Well, yes indeedy, if you want to use a product that decreases your productivity and limits your functionality, then by all means, have at it. I prefer to use a system that gives me the freedom to use the enhanced functionality that todays modern OS's have to offer. Yes, use a three button mouse.

    The Mac team realized that after becoming accustomed to a handicapped system, some users would need something to ease their transition into a better, more elegant system. They were able to accomplish this without ruining the near-perfection of their user interface.

    You took the brown pill, didn't you?

    Okay, repeat after me: "It's not 1985 anymore, it's not 1985 anymore, it's not 1985 anymore" There. The Mac interface was an innovative extension of some brilliant ideas from the boys at PARC, but lets face it, the myth of the Perfect Interface[tm] that the Church of Jobs likes to preach is just that, a myth. They were brilliant in there time, yes, but today they are just another way of doing things that is probabaly better in some ways and certainly limited in others. So in the end it's a wash.

    Now excuse me while I get back to work on my lightening fast amazing stable $600 PC, and i know you need to get back to work on your ploddingly average, moderatly stable $1500 MAC :)

    --

    All the best,
    --Bob

  152. The Barbarians Are At the Gate! by piecewise · · Score: 2

    A great line from Barbarians at the Gate

    "If this is a prank, it certainly is an elaborate one."

    "Well I don't mind one of those, do you? Just for a change?"

    --

    Sorry, I'd love for it to be true... but I know Apple, and this just doesn't seem like Apple design. There are a ton of technical details as to why this thing is a hoax. To me, it just doesn't FEEL right,a nd that's reason enough to be hopeful but speculative.

    And if it can play MP3s I'm gonna be really pissed, cause I'm charging my iPod as we speak...

    --
    The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
  153. Proof it is Fake (With Links) by telstar · · Score: 1

    Watch the very end of the Handwriting Recognition video. When the guy lifts his hand, the whole unit kind of shifts upward. We're supposed to believe that this is a solid object on a wood desk. Also, note the irregular line on the wood desk on the right at the very end of that same movie when he removes his hand. That movie in-particular just makes me think it's another PDA with a shell wrapped around it.

    Another strange movement is in the Shown from Different Angles movie. Watch the black pad on the lower-right. It moves in a really strange way at the end, almost like there was an edit of some sort done at that point.

    If it's fake, it's a good one. If it's not, then Apple needs to watch their workers a little more closely.

  154. Jobs was anti-PDA only 6 weeks ago by blindauer · · Score: 1

    This article, from only 6 weeks ago, quotes Jobs saying some pretty Anti-PDA stuff.

    I think that's reason enough to dismiss this as a hoax.

    --
    --Bradley
  155. Lisa by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 1

    Lisa...in the last 4 years?

    Sorry, but the Lisa was dropped...16 years ago?

  156. Re:Nothing new by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 1

    OK. NT 4. Was there a free upgrade to get USB support in it?

    No.

    Was there a free upgrade to get USB to work with OS 8.1? Yes there was.

    The Patches for Windows 95,98,ME, 2000, they just fix bugs. OS upgrades from Apple for the OS 8-9 actually offer new features.

    Case in point.
    Windows 98 and OS 8.1 came out in the spring of 1998. Both came with a new file structure for drives: Fat32 and HFS+. One was a pay upgrade, one was free. So if you were on Windows 95 and wanted Fat32, you had to pay for the upgrade. For the Mac is was a free patch.

    In my mind, support for Windows 95 ended there with 98 because new features required an OS upgrade.

  157. Re:Nothing new by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 1

    Power Computing.

    PPC and Motorola and all the clone makers had a contract with Apple and they knew the contract was going to expire. Talks broke down when the parties could not agree to new terms. Instead of letting PPC die, Apple bought them.

    It's not like they didn't know the contract was up.

  158. Bah by electricmonk · · Score: 1
    Who cares? Apple is hyping this shit to high heaven. Think about the last time that happened. It just so turns out that Steve Jobs is so full of shit that he would hype a fucking trashcan if he thought he could make a buck off it. He hyped the Segway before everyone knew what it was, and guess what? He was way full of shit, it really isn't that revolutionary or great, and one certainly wouldn't "build whole cities around it," like he claimed.

    Considering that the last release from Apple was a disappointing overpriced MP3 player, whatever they release this time must be incredibly mundane for them to hype it up so much.

    --
    Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
  159. Re:delightful.....yes, it is(?) by CMonk · · Score: 1

    That's how I upgraded my Dell 333P (33mhz 386) to a 486 33Mhz. That has to pre-date the StarMax hack by a few years.

  160. Spymac & their reputation by asterias · · Score: 1

    They said the IPod was supposed to be a pda too. They even had pictures... Imho Spymac is a site of lies created by people with WAY too much time on thier hands... Besides. It's too ugly. Apple would never release something unless it was functional AND cute...

  161. Re:delightful.....yes, it is(?) by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

    Wasn't Motorola spending 100M$ to retrofit a factory to make Mac clones?

    Motorola's _original_ plan with the PowerPC was to compete with Intel in the business desktop market by selling PPC workstations running Windows NT. This was hatched before Apple even signed up for PPC.

    Their Mac clone licence came rather late, after businesses showed no interest in moving from Intel. (Primarily because the PPro came out, and to everyone's suprise, kicked ass.) So, you can't blame Apple entirely for Moto's very poor business decisions.

    --
    Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
  162. How Apple can do better this time.... by newbob · · Score: 1
    One thing that I think Apple did wrong the first time--with the Newton--is charging an arm and a leg for a development system.

    If there was a cheap, or free, development system, more software will be developed for it. This gave the Palm platform a tremendous head-start over other PDAs (not to mention the fact that it was small and easy to use).

  163. My problem is with "turnaround.mov" by Steve+Cowan · · Score: 1

    I have trouble with turnaround.mov - in around the last three seconds of the movie, the desktop surface near the bottom right of the image shifts to the right, while the apple power adaptor sitting on the desk stays completely still.

    Weird... but as I drag the frame over that, it suddenly looks VERY fake.

  164. They could be fakes... by skirch · · Score: 1
    The movies look great, but it's not impossible that they are fakes. Something looks a little fishy about them to me, but the secret will be out on Monday anyway, right?

    I don't think that anyone needs to be reminded how sophisticated augmented reality has become. Here's a great (albeit a little dated) example of homebrew special effects involving a jet airliner. Most of you probably saw it a couple of years ago when it was released.

    405

  165. It uses the Newton font and button designs by GlenRaphael · · Score: 2
    The font shown in the text-entry examples is one called "casual" that was designed by Marge Boots for the Newton. The relocatable icon dock also appears to be a copy of the Newton MessagePad 2000. My guess is they took screen shots of an MP2K to make some of the bitmaps that went into putting this hoax together.

    I really miss Newton's handwriting recognition and the Newton Notepad application. If this were a real product I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

    Alas... -Glen Raphael (author of NewtPaint)

    --
    I play Nerd-Folk!
  166. Re:Now you're just being a luddite by Electric+Angst · · Score: 1

    Perhaps what we really need is a productivity test. Give two individuals several similar tasks. One has a PC, one has a Mac.

    You could start them out with their machine and it's components in the box, which would give you a really good idea about setup issues. Then again, you could have a pre-configured machine to stop arguments about "third-party hardware" being the problem (of course, with WinTel, everything's third-party...) Then it'd be one large task that would require many of the features a computer (PC and Mac) would offer.

    Perhaps creating the layout of a magazine.

    Writing an e-mail to an editorial staff and listening to their replies, researching information and writing up a short article. It could even be an album review (except I'm sure that including music would basically favor the Mac far too strongly.)

    Damnit, now I want to write this up and actually try it. (Particularly because I'm 100% certain the Mac would win,) A computer test that actually measured something important, not just particular, highly unlikely upper-limits...

    --
    Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
  167. SweatPea by SimHacker · · Score: 1
    Who remembers SweatPea? Danfuzz, do you still have the prototype?

    -Don

    --
    Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
  168. Why no details? Got to be a fake... by jriskin · · Score: 1

    Besides the more obvious video flaws when you zoom in on the handwriting video, my biggest question is, why no details?

    Rumer sites are ALL ABOUT specifications, software details, etc...

    If it were real they would be writing about the cool new features.

    My advice:
    1. Don't be so ambitious next time with your videos and blow them up to check for problems.
    2. Create better ficticious features. Like a list of built in software.
    3. Get details on a likely chip and post specifications for that chip.

    Fake Rating:
    7/10 Good job!

  169. MacMate by lostchicken · · Score: 1

    Wasn't apple supposed to release a PalmOS device (I had read they did get a Palm license) and call it the MacMate?

    Check it out, go to MacMate.com. It'll take you to apple.com.

    It seems apple has traded ease of use in a PDA for the ability to rely on internally developed software.

    --
    -twb
  170. what if it can play MPEG4? by polonus · · Score: 1

    Just consider this possibility I was thinking about yesterday. The 'iWalk' seems to be quite a big (I mean size) thing in today's PDA world. If the purpose was to provide big screen, huge battery and internal HD - I guess it is or will be able to play movies. Considering Apple's efforts to contribute to MPEG-4 story, the device maybe will be able to play such movies! If so, Apple will release some kind of DVD ripper (with "don't steal movies" sticker on it ;) - and, they call it something after iTunes, like eer... iCinema? So we would have iCinema (DVD ripper, ripping to MPEG-4/QT movies) and iPod for video (iWalk). Of course iWalk would be more than this - PDA. How do you like the idea?

  171. One word.... by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 1
    4) Apple has always been an innovator. PDAs are not new. I don't see a lot of room for innovation with them.

    One word:

    iPod

    hmmm.. Ok, more than one word. Innovation don't nessesarily mean thinking up new completely new ideas. It also means improving existing ideas.

    At first glance. There is nothing special about the iPod. It's certainly nothing new. But when you take a closer look you find out that: It has a huge storage capasity for it's size, has fast connection, long battery life, better interface than similar devices, doubles as a portable (and bootable) harddrive. It's innovative.

    I do think that this iWalk is a fake. And don't think that Apple will revile a PDA anytime soon. But I can't see why won't in the future. It's not like the PDA industry is overflowing with innovation or anything *cough* Palm *cough*.
    Apple are quite capable of producing a PDA that would be the next Newton or Palm Pilot Pro, or whatever.

    As for you claim that there is not alot of room for innovation with PDAs. Maybe you should seek a job at Palm. There are thousands of ideas out there. Saying that there is no room for innovation in any is silly.

  172. [ot] Re:There's a good chance it's fake... by msouth · · Score: 2
    I'll eat my hockey puck mouse. I'm not using it anyhow.

    Wow, I've heard of embedded systems before, but I'm thinking that a hockey puck that requires a mouse to interface with it is just a little bit unnecessarily complex.

    On the other hand, I like the idea of using a hockey stick to interface with my machine some times, so maybe this is just a case of someone doing it for the symmetry.

    --
    Liberty uber alles.
  173. Re:who cares? move on and think like the commercia by f00zbll · · Score: 2
    good point, change that to a miniature quantum mobile platform the size of a pack of bubblegum.

    that's the ticket

  174. Re:who cares? move on and think like the commercia by f00zbll · · Score: 2
    so I can have an intelligent agent to spider the internet to find all the best pr0n for me. why else? and with a heads-up display, I can view it anytime.

    I'm being sarcastic

    I am building a database of ingredients and recipes for myself. So I want it to be able to spider the news groups, internet and everything else for recipes using natural language parsing, knowledgebase, semantic web, rdf and XML.

  175. Re:delightful.....yes, it is(?) by chrisheatherly · · Score: 1

    I worked at Power Computing.

    Apple did not get any of our engineers. Several of them started a company backed by 3Com that made a streaming media radio. Don't know what happened to the others. But I can tell you that none of them were in any mood after Power to go back to Apple.

  176. Re:Nothing new by proxima · · Score: 2

    patch != feature upgrade
    patch == bug fix

    --
    "The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
  177. Re:who cares? move on and think like the commercia by thenerd · · Score: 1

    I am building a database of ingredients and recipes for myself. So I want it to be able to spider the news groups, internet and everything else for recipes using natural language parsing, knowledgebase, semantic web, rdf and XML.


    Assuming you aren't kidding, why do you need a PDA with this rules engine to spider everything for recipes while parsing natural language? Do you need rdf and XML to transfer these recipes between systems that much? And why do you need this 'rules engine' over simple program logic? Is it so important for you to encapsulate the decision making in your PDA recipe spidering system as rules that can be evaluated by this engine? If it is important, why?

    What's wrong with a recipe book?

    I'm not trying to belittle you, merely understand. I'm a bit bewildered, and it seems you might be over-engineering somewhat, assuming I haven't been trolled. If I have been, well done, you have more wits than I do. If I haven't please carry this on, I'm curious. I had a look around and there is a site called 'allrecipes.com' which has thousands of recipes. I like food as much as the next man, but why the need for so many recipes gathered through unconventional techniques?

    thenerd

    --
    The camels are coming. I'm in love.
  178. Re:delightful.....yes, it is(?) by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 2

    because the PPro came out, and to everyone's suprise, kicked ass

    A lot of people didn't know that the PPro was any good, for one, it required 32 bit software when 16bit was still pretty common, at the time Win95 was what everyone used and it was hybrid 16/32 bit code in the OS, and for a lower price you could have bought a competitive chip that ran the 16bit and 32 bit software decently. Certainly, those needing high-end power or reliability got the PPro but IIRC for a while it's performance was a pretty well kept secret.

  179. Re:Did someone hire Sculley back? by scoove · · Score: 1

    Criticism of Apple = Flamebait, eh?

    Looks like we need to yank the mod points from Apple freaks.

    *scoove*

  180. Re:Did someone hire Sculley back? by scoove · · Score: 2

    Abandond? WebObjects? when did this happen...

    Apparently Apple must still /sell/ the product. Support was another matter for us. When we bought it (for a nice pile of cash) back in 97, we discovered the product didn't work and were constantly given stories about how the developers were working on a fix. Boy was there buyers remorse in that case - especially after the strong sales pitch, followed with a "well yes, it doesn't work. we know that but can't help you presently" line. (I'm racking my brains trying to remember what problem we had with it, but I'm just the idiot that authorized the purchase rather than the development team that ended up battling with it. I'm just remembering the consistently dishonest sales group and totally incompetent, unresponsive support organization - they made Microsoft support look like gods). Add that to a few months of meetings with a board that kept on wondering why I wasted money on this failure (they warned against Apple in the first place and we selected it against better judgement).

    After a call with our rep who had the latest excuse, our impression was that the product was the latest stillborn Apple abandonware. We shifted development to Microsoft's platform and nailed the product in six months.

    If WebObjects is still in use, it's got to be a testiment to how stubbornly stupid Apple users are... a group I was a proud member of for way too long as well.

    Let em hang along with Be.

    *scoove*