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Apple Introduces "MacBook Wheel"

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the future-is-now dept.

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."

23 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. The Onion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The onion, where it's April 1st year round.

    1. Re:The Onion by dotancohen · · Score: 4, Funny

      The onion, where it's April 1st year round.

      And where only Apple could reinvent the Wheel.

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
    2. Re:The Onion by Ihmhi · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Spin the wheel in ANY direction."

      "Hey guys, which way is the any direction?"

      The more things change...

      --
      Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
  2. phone next? by firewood · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe next they'll invent some way to dial a phone with just some sort of rotary wheel...

    1. Re:phone next? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If this isn't on the iPhone AppStore already, it will be real soon. Enough folks would shell out a few bucks for the novetly of it.

      "Hey, look at me! I can dial my iPhone, just like in those old movies!"

      Mount your iPhone in a shoe, and you can play Maxwell Smart. Now that would really freak people out, when your shoe rings, and you take it off to answer it.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:phone next? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Funny

      Dialing a phone with a rotary wheel will actually be a whole lot easier in my mind than typing an email with a whole wheel. I don't see how this process is faster than me typing exactly what I want. Imagine trying to program with that thing. Predictive text will not be any help with odd variables names and punctuation marks all over the place. This to me is definitely overkill.

      It's quick than you think. Suppose you wanted to type Whoosh! to inform someone that they had missed a joke. Once you enter Wh you can just select Whoosh! from the dropdown list.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    3. Re:phone next? by dkh2 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hal is working on one of these already - that's why his first sentence has "quick" where the form "quicker" should have been.

      --
      My office has been taken over by iPod people.
  3. 2 things put me off on this by geeper · · Score: 5, Funny

    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?
  4. I know... by XPeter · · Score: 4, Funny

    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
    1. Re:I know... by mobby_6kl · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think you're missing the real genious here. What Apple/Steve did is simplify the computing experience so that it "just works". If you were to type an email in Vista, you'd have to use the confusing keyboad which has way too many buttons. A common keyboard has about a hundred too many.

      Instead, you just flick the wheel around until you get to the character you need, like you would with a safe. That's it, there's just one device you interface with, and everything is a single fluid motion around the wheel. As is often the case, you're just stuck with your old obsolete ways, while Steve has seen the light and wants to share with us all.

  5. Ob ... by BESTouff · · Score: 5, Funny
    - Dear MacFan, will you defend the new MacBook Wheel without even knowing what it is ?

    - Yes, iWheel !

  6. Leave it to Apple... by techstar25 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Leave it to Apple to reinvent the wheel...

  7. Ligfhten up dude. /. did. :-) by crovira · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  8. Re:Why is this on the -/ frontpage? by wild_berry · · Score: 5, Funny

    MacWorld San Francisco is today. This content is made available to you as part of their 'driving and leveraging for increased consumer experience' toward the '"Idle" supersite subbrand of the Slashdot publishing matrix'.

    This post took 119 minutes to write on my new MacBook Wheel.

  9. Re:Why is this on the -/ frontpage? by jayhawk88 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh noes, it took up almost 2 cm of your screen when you opened Slashdot, and perhaps as much as 3 minutes of your opening morning avoid-work browsing to view the video, however will you recover from such trauma?

  10. Timing is everything by malice · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...

  11. Re:Why is this on the -/ frontpage? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    -/? This is slashdot, not dashslash.

  12. Re:The really sad thing about this... by ari_j · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Try writing and formatting a 20-page brief, 150-page thesis, or a thousand 2-page letters on your cell phone if you need any proof that the full keyboard is here to stay.

    Oh, and then, after you finish all that, try to write a speech recognition program without using a keyboard.

  13. the Onion have been right before now... by advocate_one · · Score: 5, Informative

    the five blade razor...

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  14. First Post! by hansamurai · · Score: 5, Funny

    with Macbook Wheel

    --
    Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
  15. Re:This doesn't belong here by PK_ERTW · · Score: 4, Insightful
    So, any topic that shows up on 'idle' is banned from appearing on the front page?

    This is a story that clearly belongs in idle. It is also, in one dudes opinion, from the top of that pile. So if the category exists, does the cream of it not belong on the front page?

    PK

    --
    Engineers arn't boring people, we just get excited about boring things.
  16. Re:The really sad thing about this... by Thalagyrt · · Score: 4, Funny

    Computer! rm -rf /var/www/old!
    # rm -rf /
    #

    SHIT!

    --
    Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo!
  17. Re:MacWheel Shuffle by emlyncorrin · · Score: 4, Funny

    You could get a cardboard cutout made of yourself to fool the rest of the office.

    It'd probably be less painfull if you got it made of cardboard.