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."
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.
Re:If it stays up is probably a fake
by
dhamsaic
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· 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.
Re:If it stays up is probably a fake
by
bribecka
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· 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?
Re:If it stays up is probably a fake
by
lujo
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· 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.)
There's a good chance it's fake...
by
Electric+Angst
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· 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.
Re:There's a good chance it's fake...
by
MikeBabcock
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· 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.
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
Re:There's a good chance it's fake...
by
msouth
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· 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.
It comes from SpyMac.com
by
Trajan's+Horse
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· Score: 5, Informative
the same folks who had a mockup picture of the 'iWalk' back in October. These guys lack all credibility in my book, and were very clever back then at getting the Apple community all excited. Even Slashdot reported it in October. Check out their archives on http://www.spymac.com on and around October 23rd for the first run at this hoax.
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.
Discussion
by
webslacker
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Here's an ongoing discussion at Ars Technica about its validity...
Seems likely to be a fake
by
sg3000
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· Score: 4, Informative
I agree that it seems to be a fake. In the iWalk_Still10.jpg, it shows the Apple logo on the job wheel, something that looks kind of retarded. If look at an iPod, it's clear that their industrial design goes for more of an understated look -- for example, there is no Apple logo on the front of an iPod. In fact, I'd expect an Apple PDA today to look more like an iPod.
The screen looks kind of odd in that shot, too. it looks like the scroll bar on the right doesn't quite line up with the tool bar on the bottom. I'd also expect the UI to look more like Aqua.
If this thing plays MP3s, Apple will be canabalizing sales from their successful iPod. They've been pretty good about marketing recently, and I'd be surprised if they pulled an obvious blunder like that (particularly since they're still stinging from the poor marketing they did with the overpriced Cube).
Finally, if I understand correctly, Steve Jobs hated the Newton. I believe he called it a "damn scribble toy" before he killed it a few years ago. It would be odd for him to resurrect it.
In short, I think this is likely another hoax.
-- Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Re: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.
Re:Apple started the PDA
by
Quixote
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· 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.
logo there for a reason
by
crayz
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· 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.
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
Apple secrets revealed
by
briggsb
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· 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.
Re:Apple started the PDA
by
jcr
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· 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."
It's a fake and here is why
by
kawaichan
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· 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)
Rumors and speculation.....
by
BWJones
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· 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.
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.
Temporary Mirror w. vid clips
by
Simon+Carr
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· Score: 3, Informative
Need UserID/Password to view....free one here
by
bdavenport
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· 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*/
Re:Nothing new
by
Wyatt+Earp
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· 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.
Spymac original video/images
by
supabeast!
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· Score: 4, Informative
Unless you consider it a plant
by
Pfhor
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· 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).
SPAM ALERT!! - same one I got!
by
mr.ska
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· 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
What's Woz playing with?
by
artemis67
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· 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...
-----
Re:What's Woz playing with?
by
jandrese
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· 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.
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...
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
Movies seem fishy.
by
nobodyman
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· 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.
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
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
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?
Slashdot Mirror
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!
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.
the same folks who had a mockup picture of the 'iWalk' back in October. These guys lack all credibility in my book, and were very clever back then at getting the Apple community all excited. Even Slashdot reported it in October. Check out their archives on http://www.spymac.com on and around October 23rd for the first run at this hoax.
I 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.
Here's an ongoing discussion at Ars Technica about its validity...
I agree that it seems to be a fake. In the iWalk_Still10.jpg, it shows the Apple logo on the job wheel, something that looks kind of retarded. If look at an iPod, it's clear that their industrial design goes for more of an understated look -- for example, there is no Apple logo on the front of an iPod. In fact, I'd expect an Apple PDA today to look more like an iPod.
The screen looks kind of odd in that shot, too. it looks like the scroll bar on the right doesn't quite line up with the tool bar on the bottom. I'd also expect the UI to look more like Aqua.
If this thing plays MP3s, Apple will be canabalizing sales from their successful iPod. They've been pretty good about marketing recently, and I'd be surprised if they pulled an obvious blunder like that (particularly since they're still stinging from the poor marketing they did with the overpriced Cube).
Finally, if I understand correctly, Steve Jobs hated the Newton. I believe he called it a "damn scribble toy" before he killed it a few years ago. It would be odd for him to resurrect it.
In short, I think this is likely another hoax.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
mirror to the quicktimes. just in case.
i just read that apple did not register a iwalk related domain. can anyone confirm this? they registered ipod.com before that was released...
Hank! White!
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.
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.
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
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.
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."
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
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.
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.
here
Just for today.
-- The unsig...
Username: iwalk5198
Password: Xv74mS2
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
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.
http://www.spymac.com/iwalk/.
Username: iwalk5198, Password: Xv74mS2
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).
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
Here are some more pictures to fuel the fire... Steve Wozniak playing with a device that looks very similar to the mystery unit...
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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...
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
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.
And then there was WebObjects (or whatever the heck it was called) that we bought for a nice chunk of change that never really worked and finally got abandoned
.woa in the URLs means.
Seems to work pretty well, too... Apple Store and iTools run on it everyday. At least, I believe what the
cat
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
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