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Apple Introduces "MacBook Wheel"
CommonCents noted an Apple announcement a few hours before the anticipated keynote. He says "Apples' latest must have gadget does away with the keyboard. With the new MacBook Wheel, Apple has replaced the traditional keyboard with a giant wheel."
The onion, where it's April 1st year round.
Or does the anchorwoman have a head shaped like an onion?
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
Maybe next they'll invent some way to dial a phone with just some sort of rotary wheel...
This reminds me of the Mactini on the The Peter Serafinowicz Show Christmas Special: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noe3kR8KqJc
...is that if I hadn't noticed this was from the Onion when I read a blurb about it on another tech website this morning, I would have believed it. I don't know if that says something about my intelligence (or lack thereof) or if it says something rather disturbing about Apple.
However, on a more serious note, it's just a matter of time before the keyboard and mouse go away. Perhaps it isn't going to happen quite as soon as some people predict, but eventually with gestural control and the ever-improving implication of voice recognition technology, there just won't be a need for direct, physical input. I look forward to the days we our children can quote Back to the Future 2 with full knowledge that the kids in the arcade uttered a prophetic phrase: "You mean you have to use your hands? That's like a baby's toy!"
News from theonion.com? That's more legit than Apple's advertising team in the 1970s. Mac fans probably wont be able to tell the difference!
The way that my jobs works out, I could do MOST of it with a Wheel! And if I got the MacWheel Shuffle, I could NOT show up, and half the office wouldn't notice ;-)
Probably Apples MS Bob
Seriously? A joke article on slashdot, on a regular news day..
1. 45 minutes to type a simple email.
2. The dude that said "I'll buy anything thats shiny made by Apple!"
Error reading device 'Signature'. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
This is a bit "out there", but to be perfectly honest I'd rather use a laptop running VISTA over that silly Macbook Wheel. It will take me more time to type an e-mail on that thing, then it would to send an e-mail on Vista. This is what happens when Steve gets sick, Apple gets desperate for ideas.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
- Yes, iWheel !
Next year's big Apple announcement will be the elimination of keyboards from the MacBook Air. Just touch sensitive pads so that we can make it even THINNER!!!!
IIRC this joke is 10 years old. I think I saw it in The Onion around 10 years ago. The fact that Slashdot fell for it makes up for the old joke.
AccountKiller
that there won't be any optical drives. Too low tech for those yuppies that buy that stuff. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against Apple, per se, but I just don't like that would (for example) sell an iDrive for $249, and all it is is a $49 Segate hard drive with a damn shiny case.
Leave it to Apple to reinvent the wheel...
Personally, I thought it was a bit of a waste of space but its "The Onion" what else could is be?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
That video must have cost a fortune to make. It's a pity the premise was just was not that funny to start with. Dear Onion, Throwing cash at a weak joke does not make it super hilarious. C.
"I'll buy anything from Apple if it's shiny and new."
Kinda says it all about the target demographic.
Your comment sucks. You suck. I love you.
"...sonofabitch! It's a crummy commercial!"
I'm sure this being on the front page of /. has nothing to do with the Macworld Expo keynote that takes place in a matter of hours...
Puts me in mind of this recent spoof, by Peter Serafinowicz: http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/348881/d4b348a0/de_mactini.html
Well, if this' not a bad joke... despite 45 min to write a proper text...
Does anyone else know why keybs have so much keys and why are there in the way they're placed? Just for imagination: we have 10 fingers and we want them not to be atrophiated (deformed)...
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I'm actually surprised this hasn't happened before. People are too lazy to type or read anyway, so why bother with a keyboard? But using the terminal will be a bit tricky...
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
This is some funny stuff !
Made my day =)
But seriously, where are the hightech interface stuff? We are all still using keyboards !
Ten years ago we had voice recognize software, record eye movement tracking -> pointer theories and auto complete / auto correct spelling utils.
What new interface have we adopted in the last 10 years?
Answer is: Ipod wheel
This joke is about 5 years late, just like their Dick Cheney/undisclosed location joke I saw a few weeks back.
I remember when the Onion was something special.
Really really terrible submission. Should have been rejected.
For those plaintively responding "But this is idle" ... no it's not. It originated on Idle but it's on the front page, where it emphatically and utterly does not belong.
Why is this shit on the front page?
One of the options was "The abortion went well".
Huh?
the five blade razor...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
with Macbook Wheel
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
8==D
(I know this is a joke.)
The predicted 7 inch iBook will not have a keyboard. Will probably have a virtual keyboard like the iPhone.
So not to crazy to imagine a full sized laptop with a virtual keyboard.
Of course the wheel is silly.
And the next generation version will replace the two-dimension wheel with a little sphere that can be rotated through the use of a finger - it will be called te MacBall.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I'll bet 50 bucks there would be a line at the door 25 people deep at the Apple stores on a joke release date.
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
...and now I want a wheel in place of my trackpad.
Damn you, Jobs!
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
For a second, I thought it was April Fools Day. Screw you, Slashdot, for making me think spring was here!
Truth, Just Us, And Hatred For All Mankind!
This story is an obvious publicity stunt for CommonCents. I can't believe it got published.
Nothing is more than a few hundred clicks away!
Stupid sexy Flanders.
"One button. Endless possibilities." That's totally something Apple would put on a poster.
:q!
How did you Added your own Sentenced, The actor asked for an aardvark. 16uy89; ?
Sent from my MacBook Wheel.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
A very-well done Apple spoof, released on the day of the last MacWorld. Couldn't be more on-topic if you ask me.
And I say this as an Apple user myself.
Apple engineering is looking do away with the screen for it's next generation, to significantly cut down weight.
Oh yes, that's right, the SAW - 'Spinning Alphabet Wheel' for the Macintosh.
Appeared in a dead-tree version of the onion in ~94/95ish. Either inspired by or the inspiration for news posts in some rec.humor group at about the same time?
So now the Onion is ripping off itself or usenet posts from 15 years prior? Have they already used up all the funny?
What makes it so funny is how close to reality every single piece of the spoof actually could be.
"I'll buy anything as long as it is shinny and made buy Apple." said the sheep
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
Damn. I thought I had it. Stupid MacWheel!!!
The reason why voice is such a bad input is not that the recognition programs are so bad but it is in the way the brain works. I use the same part of my brain to speak the sentence as I do to think about what I am going to say. Where as with finger (keyboard) input I can think about what should be recorded and let a different part of the brain control the fingers and let them do it. Like multi tasking the brain.
Check out the suggestions for the predicted typing: "The aardvark admitted it was wrong."
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I am a long time Apple enthusiast. I really like their products, but I absolutely hate their software. Whenever I get an Apple product, the first thing I do is dual boot. I'm really looking forward to using the GRUB boot loader with the ease of the scroll wheel.
You have to admit though, that was a high quality spoof. They did a great job making the fake product and making it look like it works. As well as the surrounding expo looking backdrop.
Very funny.
-Andy
This is not a troll post. This is 100% insightful. Mod parent up! Idle and The Onion were funny back in like 2003 maybe.
That's just Steve Jobs making sure Jeff Bezos's 1-click patent remains relevant...
I guess Mac users lose interest after 140 characters.
He doesn't know a damn about typing properly, and he refuses to learn. I think that for him, typing with this giant wheel might actually be faster.
Meanwhile, I'll stick with my laptop that has a keyboard, Vista, and Ubuntu on it.
They disabled maximize in that lame implementation of jwplayer, and pausing triggers an overlay that covers the picture.
Here's the direct link to the video:
http://videos.theonion.com/onion_video/2009/01/06/NO_KEYBOARD.flv
I'm done with slashdot.
Best quote "everything is just a few hundred clicks away"... very funny.
She said "Dick King"...heh heh, pffh pffh
... is rolling over in his grave.
Have gnu, will travel.
If I wanted to have to wade through The Onion's rubbish disguised as news all the time, I'd be over at Digg. The Onion, while funny, should NEVER be front page news at Slashdot - BECAUSE IT AIN'T NEWS! Seriously, what's next? Lolcats? Come on...
I support the FairTax www.fairtax.org
God damn it!
Rocket science is easy. Neurosurgery, now *that's* difficult.
What if there were a wheel with the alphabet laid out around it, so that you would pick the letter from around the wheel, instead of scrolling through letters? I realize this is a joke, but I didn't realize it at first, and thought "what could you do with such a thing?" The keyboard in fact is difficult and slow for some people (especially those not brought up in the computer age,) so could there be a faster way for them to type? I'm not saying a wheel is the answer, but considering other possibilities as well as a keyboard might not be a bad idea.
I love this, perfect saracasm from the Onion yet again.
.
I guess the onion tv bug [placement] is equivalent to a pie symbol?
.
Great easter egg Onion....
Due to it's lack of Screen, Hard Drive or Wheel... LMAO!!!
Jobs on Macworld? Isn't he in home for recovering his health? :)
These guys from Onion are really good, but they slipped into that fact this time.
This is totally retarded! How in the hell are you supposed to type anything with this nightmare? 45 minutes to type an email and only 20 minutes of battery life?! And the most ridiculous thing is when all your files are in alphabetical order like that, so you have to sift through the whole computer to find it. The guy even admitted that you have to make a few hundred clicks to reach the file you want! This must be some sort of ploy to get people to run out and buy all the remaining MacBooks BEFORE this ridiculous change is implemented. I for one am NOT going to get one of those stupid "wheel" MacBooks. If they came up with an Apple n*tbook that used a wheel, maybe that would be kind of weird and cool, but there is no way you can possibly do any serious work with this.
The Onion really shells out to get a laugh, that must have cost at least thousands to put together.
The mockups were remarkable though, a wheel instead of a keyboard really is just ridiculous, but maybe if they put one beside the keyboard it could do something interesting and useful. Apple has always impressed me with the way they used capacitive sensing, they could do quite a bit more.
That just gave me an idea for a keyboard with 'normal' keys to give you the tactile feedback, but as you touch each key it lights up or something, or applications make some use of it... to... uhh... something cool, God damnit!
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
He said, nothing is more than a few hundred clicks away, lol...
I'm waiting for someone to come up with an input-device modelled on a Rubik's Cube. Man, *that* would prevent computing-whle-drunk. Or, in my case, I would probably never get the letters I wanted, in the right order :-O
You sound like my wife.
Warning! Humor site. Don't click! :)
Why did I not heed this warning? Please pass the bleach.
This will stop some fat finger typing.
Also this will allow people with mittens on to type.
Why the hell is this on the front page? I don't come to slashdot to read joke news. Especially when it isn't listed as joke news and I had to click through to the onion before I realized it was a joke. Save the humor for April 1st guys. If I want to see something funny that isn't true I'll go somewhere else.
Did you watch all of it? It looks like the guy doesn't even get all of it out...
has no one commented on this being a giant ipod?
O.o
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Where are slashdots editors, and why doesn't the article mention it's a joke and not real news.
The site is News for Nerds: Stuff that matters NOT Rumors/Jokes/Spoof news for Nerds: Stuff that's funny
Please fix this, so Slashdot can maybe spare a little of the credibility remaining from its glorious history...
colossal
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Apples' latest must have gadget
Thi's seem's to have been written by a per'son who ha's no idea where to put hi's apo'strophe's
Hey, it's not too far off from plausible. Check out the Microsoft Big Ass Table(tm)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZrr7AZ9nCY
What the fake? It's totally amazing to see that nobody's telling it's a joke ! Slashdot's turning fake or what?
will this work with windows 95?
Reminds me of a fun project I did a couple years ago where I did away with the keyboard and set up double mice to be used together. You could mouse with both mice and by holding down the left middle mouse button you could use simple gestures from the two mice to type and do other things pretty effectively. It worked pretty well but would probably never catch on as it requires learning gestures. The general idea was to make the computer more usable for people who could use mice but not keyboards (due to trouble moving their fingers).
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Don't know if it's real or not, looks real and it's a good idea but one button. Seriously? And also, 45 min for a small email? And a 19 min battery? Seriously, Apple looks like it's going to become just like Microsoft at the fact that no one who is involved in developing the product has ever actually used it. So what if it's ultra-thin. It doesn't matter if you can't use it for more than 30 min. 30 min is the bare minimum in my opinion, and 45 seems like the max. Also, for a laugh (and a hint at whether or not this is fake) go to 2:17 in the video and watch the scrolling newsfeed at the bottom.
This is Fucking STUPID that guy took 45mins to write an EMAILED ?!?!!? are you serious dumbest thing in the world
Whoosh!
One Button. At least ten times as much time wasted to find your letter, word, sentence, file, program, action... Simplifying into less buttons doesn't necessarily make a device more user-friendly or quick to use, rather, it can slow down usage because you could possibly miss the option you were looking for and have to go back for it, or it could plain be faster because it only requires one action: pressing the right key to get the right letter to appear.
This isn't the future of computers, this is a gadget that won't work.
I am not devoid of humor.
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The Mac uTurn
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* Sigh *
... or do the Whoosh's get louder the further down you go?