Apple setting the marketing bar higher than their engeneers can jump again?

January 2, 2002 6:51 AM

Apple setting the marketing bar higher than their engeneers can jump again? Today apple.com reads "Beyond the rumor sites. Way beyond." Apparently yesterday it said something like "This is big, even for us." All of this is reference to the San Francisco MacWorld Expo on Jan, 7th where they presumably plan to launch a new product. The most credible rumour so far is a new iMac with an LCD flat-panel display that has been ready for months, but held back. It's interesting that after the iPod popped the expectations bubble (don't get me wrong, it's a cool toy, but lots of people were disappointed after the hype), Apple is stirring up so much hype themselves. I guess they've got me talking about it.
posted by stevengarrity (89 comments total)

Hey at least apple keeps it entertaining...
unlike the windows xp ad campaign which makes me feel like they were trying to sell paxil or some such medication...
posted by bittennails at 6:57 AM on January 2, 2002

it could be the 5 gig wireless firewire, 'gigawire'
posted by Mick at 7:13 AM on January 2, 2002

Macway.
posted by pracowity at 7:36 AM on January 2, 2002

If you really want to feed at the hype-trough, make sure you check out the forums at AppleInsider.

Speculation seems to be centering around:

1. a revamped iMac, with LCD screen and bumped up to the G4 processer (from the current G3)
2. a new PDA, leveraging off the form factor of the recently released iPod.
3. an entertainment digital hub, perhaps a stereo component. a mix between an mp3 jukebox/tivo/hdtv/mpeg4/quicktime/set top box all able to interconnect through the new gigawire.
4. gigawire, the next generation of firewire that should feature speeds up to 1600Mbps and would be wireless.
5. introduction of the new G5 processor chips, the next generation beyond the current G4 in the pro line of macs.
6. everything breaks the 1GHz barrier - perhaps even as high as 1.4 or 1.6 GHz
7. a tablet based device (to steal the thunder from the announcement the very next day)

It's interesting. The hype is high, even by Apple standards and Apple's readily fanning the flames more so than usual.

If you're interested, you can catch the keynote at your local apple store.
posted by warhol at 7:37 AM on January 2, 2002

Oh, one more thing. You can also watch the keynote online.

Info:
Watch Apple CEO Steve Jobs deliver the Macworld Expo keynote address from Moscone Center in San Francisco. See the live webcast right here on January 7 at 9am PT exclusively in QuickTime. It's an event you won't want to miss.
posted by warhol at 7:40 AM on January 2, 2002

There are reports of iBook shortages. They just updated the iBook. This leads me to believe that they will be adding some freaky new feature to the entire product line (gigawire, yo). Or, it could be a mouth, allowing their machines to run on food energy. Yes, that's perfectly likely.
posted by D at 7:47 AM on January 2, 2002

Here're my predictions, pulled from past rumors, wishful thinking and whimsy:

— You know how you can run Classic as an app on OS X? Well, how about running OS X as an app on OS 9?

— Cable-free systems: all wireless peripherals, with adapters for old devices. Via something like the Aiport 3. You can plug in all your devices to the Airport, and have them available to *any* wireless-enabled Mac within broadcast reach. USB and Firewire (leading to lots of moaning from everyone with SCSI devices).

— Return of the Newton! It runs all legacy apps and all Palm apps.

— Mac OS X for Intel. (And thus would commence the largest bootleg exchange in history).

— Native running of Windows apps of Mac OS X, courtesy of software previously written for the BSD underpinnings.

— Apple announces the purchase of Disney.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:52 AM on January 2, 2002

Here's the best Apple rumors site. They make them up and admit it.
posted by Mo Nickels at 8:01 AM on January 2, 2002

Yes, Windows' new colors and advertising look like a drug ad; a Claritin ad, specifically. It's..."reassuring" to have your worst fears confirmed so clearly. The world is obviously divided into zombies and non-zombies....

I'm hoping for a PDA!
posted by ParisParamus at 8:13 AM on January 2, 2002

To summarize for those just skimming: Starting New Year's Eve, Apple has been hyping the crap out of MacWorld San Francisco. Normally they don't talk about trade shows beforehand, this time the Apple web site is a countdown for the show:

7 days left: "This one is big. Even by our standards."
6 days left: "Count the days. Count the minutes. Count on being blown away."
5 days left: "Beyond the rumor sites. Way beyond."

That last one tossed the rumors message boards into a pants-wetting, drooling frenzy. One site even mistook Woz's gameboy for a new PDA.

And I gotta admit, I'm getting excited too.
posted by joemaller at 8:19 AM on January 2, 2002

I think there will definetly be another move into the non-computer consumer market. By and large, the iPod is doing well, and it's versatility has not been fully explored yet. Too much hype about the LCD iMac, it's coming. I wasn't expecting any OSX updates yet, so I'm not sure about that one.
posted by smilling at 8:21 AM on January 2, 2002

Best rumor so far: PowerMac G5 Dodecahedron (from MacOS Rumors)
posted by mooncrow at 8:35 AM on January 2, 2002

I think they're going to announce Chapter 13. (ducking)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:56 AM on January 2, 2002

(That would be, liquidation bankruptcy for a corporation)
posted by ParisParamus at 10:07 AM on January 2, 2002

oh god, os x on intel, yum. how about "cheap hardware" ... that would be big, even for apple to do.
posted by manero at 10:08 AM on January 2, 2002

Whatever it is, I bet it will be revolutionary...

"if enough people see the machine, you won't have to convince them to architect cities around it. It'll just happen." -Steve Jobs, about 'Ginger' / 'It' / 'Segway HT'
posted by tomplus2 at 10:08 AM on January 2, 2002

I think it's safe to say that all mac zealots (including myself) are now fully aroused . . .

Having been a desciple of Jobs for some time now, I feel it's safe to say that Apple is doing far more to fan the flames than ever before.

Recall the release of the cube (RIP). Rumors were running rampant, and Apple remained tight lipped and composed. This new attitude of theirs is, I daresay, unprecedented.

And so, with mastubatory intensity, we wait for the seventh.
posted by aladfar at 10:18 AM on January 2, 2002

aladfar, with that level of intensity, i can't wait much more than, oh, say, fifteen minutes... ok, now i'm over it. see what i mean?
posted by bliss322 at 10:23 AM on January 2, 2002

Recall the release of the cube (RIP). Rumors were running rampant, and Apple remained tight lipped and composed. This new attitude of theirs is, I daresay, unprecedented.

Perhaps one of the reasons the Cube died so quick a death was that it wasn't promoted enough. One shouldn't be surprised, then, that the Next Big Thing gets hyped up the wazoo--regardless of its merits. Count me among the waiters-and-seers.
posted by jpoulos at 10:24 AM on January 2, 2002

hey - no more making fun of paxil!!!
that's just downright low...

(oh, and all that apple stuff sounds very exciting, (as exciting as something can sound in a haze of happiness and social acumen (yes, i studied lisp, and I think that it is OK to use parentheses like this)))
posted by goneill at 10:30 AM on January 2, 2002

Mo 5cents, you're right on with your WishList. Here's mine:

- A great font management tool for both OS 9 and OS X

- A Mac OS that runs on a Palm -- with really good, intuitive desktop software

- If not an OS that runs on Intel chips then at least a translator application to connect the two systems

- How about a way to *really* personalize all your applications -- without creating a drag on your system

- Maybe a notebook that's as small and cute as Sony's Picturebook
posted by boardman at 10:36 AM on January 2, 2002

— You know how you can run Classic as an app on OS X? Well, how about running OS X as an app on OS 9?
why the hell would anybody want to do that?
— Mac OS X for Intel. (And thus would commence the largest bootleg exchange in history). as nice as it would look (osX has one very very sexy interface), i suspect it still wouldnt run as well as it does on mac processors. intel is just built too differently to warrent apple to release osx for pcs. mac processors and mac operating systems were built to work with each other. thus you havent seen any mac clones have you? (thanks sean).
as for the other rumors, i cant wait to see what apple has come up with this time.
posted by sixtwenty3dc at 10:49 AM on January 2, 2002

PowerPod.
posted by rodii at 10:58 AM on January 2, 2002

mac processors and mac operating systems were built to work with each other.

I'm not sure this is really the issue, sixtwenty3dc. OSX is built on a FreeBSD base, and FreeBSD runs just great on intel processors. If anything, Apple's insistence on tying the OS to the architecture seems to have been more about philosophical than technical considerations--Macs have always been about providing the whole package.

thus you havent seen any mac clones have you?

Laser in the '80s, StarMax (and others?) in the '90s. Apple worked its damndest to kill them though.

Personally, I would love to see Apple port OSX to i86. I might even buy a copy. It would just be ballsy as hell for them to take on Microsoft face-to-face in the OS market. So ballsy, and potentitally insanely self-destructive, that I'm suprised Jobs hasn't tried it yet.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:10 AM on January 2, 2002

They will come out with something pretty cool, and way too expensive. A month and a half later it will be available for the pc market at half the price. And so it goes...
posted by owillis at 11:12 AM on January 2, 2002

My prediction: both a car stereo and home stereo system that integrates with the ipod, so you can share your ipod with people at home and in the car. The ipod's hard drive effectively becomes the "heartbeat" in the media beast apple wants you to have at home.
posted by mathowie at 11:24 AM on January 2, 2002

A device which is a wireless Web browser. And the only site it can access is Mefi.
posted by ParisParamus at 11:27 AM on January 2, 2002

a car stereo and home stereo system that integrates with the ipod

Harmon-Kardon already contributed to the iMac's sound system. The company is legit enough to do iPod-enabled compenents credibly. I like that one!
posted by ParisParamus at 11:31 AM on January 2, 2002

Best rumor so far: PowerMac G5 Dodecahedron...

I think I like that better than the G5 Sphere (easier to stack)
posted by samsara at 11:44 AM on January 2, 2002

owillis couldn't have said it better. whatever it is it won't sell in huge numbers and shortly after debuting there will be a clone of it for the pc at a much better price.
posted by suprfli at 11:47 AM on January 2, 2002

The iPot... a new device that magically grows killer dope --just the buds!!-- all while you download illegal MP3's and rave your brains out in a wireless world of weed!

Apple confirms the iPot is really just an enhanced iPod that's been retrofitted with advanced micro-halogen LED lamp technology and an odor-trapping, titanium growing chamber that only needs the moisture from your sweaty palms to turn once useless seeds into premium smokage. You even load your seeds into your iPot just like a bb-gun!!!

The iPot will ship with a removable, dual functioning ceramic pipe and pen/pointing device, and one complementary seed from Jobs' personal greenhouse collection.
posted by blackholebrain at 12:07 PM on January 2, 2002

I think it'll be some kind of laptop except instead of a screen there's this mirror, so everyone who's working themselves up to a state of quasi-rapture can see what retards they are. Maybe the shock will make them actually give up their technophilic trolldom and actually go outside and *gasp* meet real people.
posted by RokkitNite at 12:07 PM on January 2, 2002

Dave mentioned the iDock, which sounds revolutionary enough to warrant such attention, but apple doesn't own idock.com, so it might not be true.
posted by mathowie at 12:10 PM on January 2, 2002

The speculation I am hearing is that there will be:

- 1Ghz Processors
- iTunes for PC
- New iMac
- Illustrator and other apps run native on OSX (w00t!)

I am going to be there all week to play with the new toys and go to all the parties...
posted by darian at 12:11 PM on January 2, 2002

whatever it is it won't sell in huge numbers and shortly after debuting there will be a clone of it for the pc at a much better price.

And that clone will be butt-ugly and a headache to use. But hey, at least it's cheap!
posted by jjg at 12:13 PM on January 2, 2002

Personally I think they will be releasing the iPee, for the iPod. It's a small firewire energy conversion device that converts ordinary urine into power for the iPod. Just pee in the cup once every 10 hours and your iPod will never stop playing. It will be revolutionary!
posted by demannu at 12:20 PM on January 2, 2002

- 1Ghz Processors
Yes.

- iTunes for PC
No. The strategy is no new cross-platform products, but especially no free ones.

- New iMac
Yes.

- Illustrator and other apps run native on OSX (w00t!)
Uh...
posted by jjg at 12:28 PM on January 2, 2002

apple is dead, it has been dead ever since windows 95 came out. no matter how hard macintosh tries to bring it back to life, through "revolutionary" technologies, faster processers, and "cooler" cases and outer shells, pc is just going to imitate it, and do it better, and cheaper, with more open-source, customization ability.

however i have this topic to offer. as we all know web-based is now, and is indefinitely the future. as i see it, all applications will become web-based, therefore eliminating the need for platforms at all ... ... ...
posted by wesgrimes at 12:39 PM on January 2, 2002

And that clone will be butt-ugly and a headache to use. But hey, at least it's cheap!

If aesthetic appeal were half as important as Apple has always believed, they'd be ruling the world right now--instead of frantically struggling to retain market share. I'm no Windows disciple or anything, but value (read: cheapness) will always beat out appearance for your average computer-buyer.

Besides, the "headache" factor really stopped being an issue with Win 95. Stability and third-party compatibility are huge factors, but for daily use, Windows is every bit as "user-friendly" as MAC, and has been for years.
posted by jpoulos at 12:41 PM on January 2, 2002

Look, I hate Apple as much as the next guy, but can't we find more entertaining ways of embracing the worst of usenet than .advocacy rants?
posted by NortonDC at 1:09 PM on January 2, 2002

No, no. The big news is Steve Jobs' new city that's going to debut at the Expo. The one designed around the Segway, remember?
wesgrimes, yah, gimme some of that open-source Windows. And a toke on your pipe while you're at it.
posted by darukaru at 1:22 PM on January 2, 2002

I don't think it's likely that Apple would name a device iDock, since it would result in confusion with the Mac OS X Dock.

The device itself is overdue as far as I'm concerned. With a rudimentary OS and web browser in $100 worth of flash memory, 802.11 and ethernet hookups, and a complementary suite of iTools to sync your working environment between your desktop, Apple's servers (iDisk, etc), and this new iPad -- well, this could just about surpass the hype.
posted by sudama at 1:33 PM on January 2, 2002 [1 favorite]

Long live the cube! Love my G4 cube!

Anyways, I'm hoping for LCD iMacs, and perhaps a OS X that runs on Intel computers. It would make sense, and it could compete with that nasty OS, Windows XP (hate it! bad bad bad I'm sticking with 2000 and 98 thanks!)

What else could they possibly do?

1 Ghz G4s. Quad processors? That would be cool....
New Firewire ports (new standard)
USB 2.0
Inclusion of Final Cut Pro for free......
posted by ericdano at 1:49 PM on January 2, 2002

wesgrimes, yah, gimme some of that open-source Windows.

He didn't say Windows allowed for open-source, but PCs. When you've got FreeBSD running on your G4, give me a call and we'll all share that pipe.
posted by jpoulos at 1:52 PM on January 2, 2002

Apple OS is still significantly superior to Windows. Easier. More pleasant. Less jarring on the nerves. A lot of the superiority is aesthetic, which means that a significant % of the population is not going to "get" that superiority. But that's just a given in life.
posted by ParisParamus at 1:57 PM on January 2, 2002

jpoulos: You're joking, right? It's called Darwin.
posted by sudama at 2:03 PM on January 2, 2002

mea culpa. Got carried away there.
posted by jpoulos at 2:09 PM on January 2, 2002

So who's got the pipe?
posted by sudama at 2:15 PM on January 2, 2002

everyone who's working themselves up to a state of quasi-rapture can see what retards they are. Maybe the shock will make them actually give up their technophilic trolldom and actually go outside and *gasp* meet real people.

Other people are highly overrated.
posted by kindall at 2:19 PM on January 2, 2002

apple bong
posted by kliuless at 2:24 PM on January 2, 2002

I hope to God they're NOT porting anything. Have you ever tried to buy software for a Mac? 99% of everything you find will ONLY work on a PC. Most stores don't even bother labeling "PC Stuff", since that's all they bother to carry. So now that Apple finally has some cool stuff, applications that are interesting enough that they might actually persuade some people to try out a machine, why in the world should they then give that away to the Windoze hordes? You wanna play with iTunes, OSX, iPod? Go to the Apple store. You can't expect a company with a 5% marketshare to give up what little competitive advantages it has.
posted by web-goddess at 2:47 PM on January 2, 2002

wesgrimes, the only thing that keeps Apple alive nowadays (and saved them for that matter) is their positioning of their comps in public schools. Yeech.
posted by Aikido at 2:48 PM on January 2, 2002

I'm very excited about this!

I love Apple's hardware! I like it so much that I pay more for it. I paid $2100 for my TiBook and I think that that is cheap.

Apple is _ahead_ of the hardware curve, to my mind. Sure, my 400Mhz G4 CPU is (in everyday usage) comperable to a 12 month old intel CPU, but because Apple controls the hardware spec I enjoy:

Altivec: In Logic Audio (which is A-vec enhanced) I get 4-8x the performance of a PIII running at double the Mhz. This is true, not fiction. 13 Stereo Platnumverbs. If Apple didn;'t control the spec Logic would likely have as many CPU-specific enhancements on the Mac as on Win. None.

Integrated Firewire: My laptop came with firewire. You might point out that the Vaios and some Dells do too, but my firewire is the same standard implementation as that on all Macs. DV capture works without irritating driver issues, my external Firewire 16 track audio interface works without irritating driver issues, my external firewire CDRW and harddisks even work without being plugged in to AC, so I can use external drives unplugged.

Easy wireless: Airport is great, easy and costs as low as $48 to add to your laptop or desktop, and it has a standard implementation across all Macs.

Great Stuff: My TiBook was (and arguably still is) absolute best-of-class when it was released. The Apple Cinema display is arguably one of the best monitors that can be had, etc. Apple is a relatively small hardware vendor when you compare it to the rest of the PC industry, but it makes 1st class stuff.

It costs more, sure, but most people don't buy the cheapest car they can find, do they? To me a computer is so much more important than a car. It enables me to do my job well and to do my own stuff well.
posted by n9 at 2:59 PM on January 2, 2002

Aren't iMacs the low-end of the Mac family? Maybe part of the problem is that an iMac with an LCD raises the cost to a point where you can get a much better machine for the money with a flat glass CRT.
posted by skallas at 4:00 PM on January 2, 2002

Have you ever tried to buy software for a Mac? 99% of everything you find will ONLY work on a PC.

I have never had a problem finding a piece of software for the Mac that would cover any task I need done. Outside of the game department the huge library of software for PeeCee's has usually meant one thing - more crap software. Companies that produce crap software for the Mac go out of business fast due to the small market but on the PeeCee side they can live forever off of the vast herd of lemmings who have purchased Wintel boxes. More doesn't exactly equal better...
posted by RevGreg at 4:02 PM on January 2, 2002

Aren't iMacs the low-end of the Mac family? Maybe part of the problem is that an iMac with an LCD raises the cost to a point where you can get a much better machine for the money with a flat glass CRT.

Frankly, I don't see why there's so much hype over an LCD iMac - unless Apple managed to get the price waaay down it is just another piece of nifty sculpture and I would rather have a performance boost and/or price drop in that line. Now, an LCD based tablet computer that would run OSX or PalmOS (and maybe old Newton stuff), ran at iMac levels and had USB and Firewire ports so that it could mimic a low-level desktop - you'd have my attention...
posted by RevGreg at 4:07 PM on January 2, 2002

" Outside of the game department the huge library of software for PeeCee's has usually meant one thing - more crap software."

Or more diverse shareware products. I can count at least 5 shareware or freeware products I use on my pc that I can't live without, and that have no suitable mac susbstitute. and that's just the way it is.
posted by Hackworth at 4:21 PM on January 2, 2002

If what I've heard is correct - and it probably isn't - Gates is giving a keynote elsewhere (consumer electronics show?) monday afternoon, during which he is expected to talk about his new webpad. This is why Gates moved his keynote up a day. The iDock sounds curious in this context, although it wouldn't be that name, for the reasons sudama gives above.

Although I still think a refresh (at the very least) of the entire product line makes it sound like they have some new technology they want to add to everything.
posted by D at 4:27 PM on January 2, 2002

For my second mention of Gates, substitute "Jobs." Blast.
posted by D at 4:28 PM on January 2, 2002

skallas:

Supposedly the LCD iMac has been ready for awhile now (rumors and sightings go back over a year), but Apple has been waiting to introduce them until for the price of LCDs to dropped enough to offer them at a low enough price to fit into the bottom their product matrix.
posted by ry at 4:57 PM on January 2, 2002

Yeah. Look at the iBook, its price starts at $1299. Take away the need for small, low-power components and put in a faster processor and you have a desktop at just about the same price point. Make a deal with Samsung for a massive quantity of sizable LCDs (the company has been aggressively pushing down prices lately and they make all of Apple's LCDs, I believe) and decide to sell at a low margin for a few months, and you might be able to bring a flat iMac to the table at $1000.

What I've always wodered, though, is why there's never been a laptop designed so you could fold it over backward into an "A" shape and set it on the desktop as a monitor. (Hardware or software could rotate the screen 180 degrees.) Dock it into a "monitor stand" with connectors for external mouse, keyboard, and other peripherals and it becames a compact desktop computer, yet it's still portable. It's such an obvious idea I wonder why nobody has made something like it before.
posted by kindall at 5:07 PM on January 2, 2002

Some people like windoze. Others prefer the crashintosh. I can't understand why folks get all up in arms about Apple v. Microsoft (I use both, both have major strengths and weaknesses). Pointless arguement. Like you're going to change somebody's mind? It'd be easier to get a lot of people to switch poltical party affiliatons than to trade platforms.

But I will say this, Apple has the coolest industrial design on the planet. And as a single company, is far more of a leader in rolling out new technology than most in its field, precisely because they control the hardware *and* the software. If you use a personal computer with FireWire (aka iLink) or Airport (aka 802.11b)--not to mention windowing or a mouse--you should thank Apple. Cubes aside, they aren't afraid to innovate. I'm sure that whatever it is they roll out, it'll be tres freaking cool.

And as for that cube, did you ever try one? It came out just in time for the economy to crash and expenditures to get cut all around, but it was an incredibly cool machine with really bad timing.
posted by emptyage at 5:13 PM on January 2, 2002

crashintosh?

pot to kettle...
posted by o2b at 5:47 PM on January 2, 2002

apple is dead, it has been dead ever since windows 95 came out.

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
posted by KLAX at 6:44 PM on January 2, 2002

If Apple spent as much time building compelling Windows applications as it did hyping its non-adopted platform, I believe they would be much more successful and more consumers could benefit from actual creativity outside of a marketing campaign.
posted by hitsman at 8:24 PM on January 2, 2002

Shameless, somewhat embarassing SOS: if anyone has had, and resolved a problem getting multimail to work with OS 9.2 (and a Visor), please e-mail me: you're my last hope.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:32 PM on January 2, 2002

D - what I read is that Gates is at CES on Monday, and Jobs is there (on Tuesday). Jobs thinks he has enough to steal Gates' thunder, apparently.

Hackworth - I'm not going to get into the whole religious argument, but I'm curious as to what shareware you need but is unavailable on the Mac. The Mac shareware community makes very high-quality software, in general, and I have never NOT been able to complete any task despite (as some would say) using mostly Macs for years.
posted by mikel at 8:53 PM on January 2, 2002

If it's the iDock webpad thing, will all the Mac afficionados yell at Jobs for stealing Microsoft's Tablet PC innovation?
posted by anildash at 10:41 PM on January 2, 2002

mikel: yeah, that's it. The rumour is (or is it confirmed yet?) that Jobs is speaking at CES on Tuesday, and of course moved his Macworld keynote to Monday, giving us a Jobs-Gates sandwich of epic proportions.

I still can't believe the unprecedented hype. I suppose all they're doing is throwing up a few teasers on their homepage, but have a care for the fragile Mac-lover psyche, Apple! At this point, if it isn't a $9.99 money-printing sexbot, I'm going to be surly as hell on monday afternoon.
posted by D at 10:43 PM on January 2, 2002

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

points on the simpson's ref.

i use that line all the time in conversation. it normally garnishes a reply of "smartass" tho.
posted by boogah at 10:49 PM on January 2, 2002

jpoulos > "Count me among the waiters-and-seers."

That would be fun. "Good afternoon. May I take your order? No, wait, don't tell me... it's coming to me... you want the vegetarian platter... with a side of fries! Am I right? Am I right? And your friend here... hmmm, I'm afraid things are getting dark... {holds checks to forehead} No, wait, that's it! Your friend wants a Black Russian! Can I get you anything else? Har-har, just kidding. I'll bring your drinks in a minute."
posted by pracowity at 11:20 PM on January 2, 2002

this was posted but then taken down, I don't know by whom.

I think it looks real enough but one of the comments said it was faked. Anyone care to debunk?
posted by geoff. at 11:41 PM on January 2, 2002

Well rumor has it that the people who made it are just good at faking... I'm not a mac person and I really don't care *that* much so I'm just going to wait till they release it.
posted by geoff. at 11:47 PM on January 2, 2002

I posted it, and benh57 said this:

Fake. The text on the handwriting video moves in relation to the ruled lines on the screen. Looks composited.

I thought it justified its own thread, even if it was fake as i never claimed otherwise in the original post... which i thought was important.
posted by aki at 11:50 PM on January 2, 2002

I don't agree; I think it's genuine.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 12:06 AM on January 3, 2002

I agree with Steven. I think it's genuine. The video was compressed using Sorenson compression, which only updates the screen with the portion of the movie that actually moves (hope that explanation made sense), so that could be the reason the text looks weird. I've also heard people say that they see the text stay still while the rest of the video is shaky, which I still think is attributed to it being compressed using Sorenson technologies.
posted by premiumpolar at 1:27 AM on January 3, 2002

If that's a fake, it'd be by far the most impressive fake I've ever seen. And if that's the product, and it has 802.11 by default, and if it'd be capable of creating a short range ad hoc 802.11 network, then I'd buy AAPL.
posted by sylloge at 2:34 AM on January 3, 2002

If it could run Palm OS in a virtual machine so that at least basic functionality were in the mainstream of PDAs/PDA Apps that would be a killer for me. I wonder how much horsepower that would require in a handheld device?
posted by mikel at 6:06 AM on January 3, 2002

Demmanu wrote:
"Personally I think they will be releasing the iPee, for the iPod. It's a small firewire energy conversion device that converts ordinary urine into power for the iPod. Just pee in the cup once every 10 hours and your iPod will never stop playing. It will be revolutionary!"

Someone else mentioned a laptop with a mouth. A PDA running off of renewable non-pollutables would be very cool. But then hackers would be blowing out their kidneys, drinking Dr. P all day long in order to fuel coding binges. Wait--they already do that. In the late eighties urologists experienced a boom in business when Big Gulps started becoming popular.

But back to my digression: a laptop or pda with some sort of stirling engine/fuel cell that could run on food scraps, paper, or what have you. Grass clippings. Poop. That'd be very cool. And probably bulky, stinky, and stigmatizing.
posted by mecran01 at 6:16 AM on January 3, 2002

Uh, apparently Motorola already has a tiny fuel-cell prototype. It runs on methane, which as we all know, can be generated from poop and other decomposables:

Motorola develops tiny fuel cell, the future is now, blah blah blahNews: Motorola creates gas-powered cell phones Motorola researchers announced Tuesday that they have successfully demonstrated a methane gas-powered fuel cell, which can provide enough juice between chargings for a month of cell phone calls.
posted by mecran01 at 6:22 AM on January 3, 2002

So... you just fart on your phone which both charges it up and discourages others from using it?

Neat!
posted by Grangousier at 6:41 AM on January 3, 2002

kindall asked:
"What I've always wodered, though, is why there's never been a laptop designed so you could fold it over backward into an "A" shape and set it on the desktop as a monitor. (Hardware or software could rotate the screen 180 degrees.) Dock it into a "monitor stand" with connectors for external mouse, keyboard, and other peripherals and it becames a compact desktop computer, yet it's still portable. It's such an obvious idea I wonder why nobody has made something like it before."

I saw something exactly like this shown at Comdex 2001... it was featured by Jim Louderback on TechTV. Looked very cool. Unfortunately I couldn't find any web images...
posted by Fofer at 6:54 AM on January 3, 2002

Fer cryin' out — Apple's not gonna ship a PDA now. It'd have to play MP3's, right? And it couldn't cost much more than $400, right? And the iPod just came out, right?

Here's my hope: an Apple home media server built around the DVD/CDRW Combo Drive and a big HD, which will store TV like a Replay or TiVo, rip, store, and play MP3s, and be controlled with a remote or over the Web. Runs OS X and a simplified Aqua GUI. For, let's say, $1000, I'd buy one today.
posted by nicwolff at 8:14 AM on January 3, 2002

The videos look real enough. I'm just worried that Apple would release something as bulky as this just after releasing something as sleek as the iPod. I work for an Apple retailer and no doubt we'll be getting tons of calls on Monday looking for this stuff. But as with the iPod, I wouldn't pay inflated prices for something I can (hopefully) win in a contest(!)
posted by jmcnally at 8:51 AM on January 3, 2002

Today's Apple.com tagline: "To boldly go where no PC has gone before." I'm trying hard to think of something else than "bathroom"...
posted by qbert72 at 3:37 PM on January 4, 2002

Alrighty, this is probably entirely too much information and I apologize in advance, but I've been known to bring one of the PCs at the house (a Dell laptop with wireless Ethernet) into the can.

So, alas, even "bathroom" is probably not the right answer.
posted by majick at 3:42 PM on January 4, 2002

I think the answer is "splitting infinitives".
posted by Steven Den Beste at 5:27 PM on January 4, 2002

i often carry my titaniumg4 into the bathroom. it's then that i realize i'm a geek to the ultimate degree.
posted by aenemated at 8:49 PM on January 4, 2002

No, you'd be a geek if you carried a PowerBook 1400. The titanium... well, that's just cool.
posted by Fofer at 1:55 AM on January 6, 2002