Behold! The iMac tablet computer that never was, courtesy of Rusty
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, History, Mods, iMacs, iPad
Remember all those rumors a couple years ago about Apple working on an iMac where you could remove the screen and use it as a tablet, then come home at night and dock it? Well, apparently faithful Macenstein reader Rusty does. Check out his extremely sweet iPad/iMac lovechild.
The 40 gig hard drive took a dive, and there was no way I would find a cheap replacement. And the 700 MHz PPC was not going to run hulu, youtube, or facebook. The innards are in a grocery bag in my office. I can’t bring myself to just throw them away. I took the speakers out of a dead iHome dock, and ran a headphone jack and cable through the arm. They are passive, and may be too quiet for everything, but it’s good for now. We’ll call this revision 1.
Rusty~
I doubt Apple could have done better themselves.
Steve Jobs is delusional
Filed under: Apple Bashing, Apple Fanboyism, Cynicism, History, Opinion, Rampant Speculation, Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs made a pretty bold claim when he responded to Bryan Webster’s eloquently written question abut the upcoming WWDC:
Wow. Them’s fightin’ words to be sure, and they certainly gave ME a chill when I first read them. I immediately had visions of a super-charged, video game playing Apple TV/DVR, fully open to developers, and an iPhone 4 with video chat and condom dispenser… Truly this WWDC is NOT going to disappoint!
But then I remembered something… history has an odd way of repeating itself. Let’s take a quick look at how the most faithful of faithful Mac addicts have reacted to the past couple WWDC announcements (via Mac Rumors).
Ouch. And we’re their biggest supporters! When you see how angry we Mac users get when Apple announces its latest technology, you wonder why Jobs and company even bother (of course a quick look at Apple’s stock price suggests some theories). And remember, all that anger is largely based on our own self-inflated expectations, based on rumors and wishful thinking. THIS year we actually have the man himself whipping us into a frothing, foaming frenzy of anticipation!
So, will this year’s WWDC disappoint? Yes. Yes it will. But, before you rush off to leave scathing comments on Mac Rumors this year, just remember, so did all the other WWDC’s, and yet ultimately you came to appreciate what Apple had accomplished, and odds are you’ve spoken with your wallets many times over. Do you own a MacBook? An iPod? An iPhone? An Apple TV? An iPad? As someone who owns (a couple of) all of the above, and who is usually underwhelmed by Apple’s keynotes, I can honestly say that an underwhelming Apple event is still 100 times better than the most exciting Microsoft event.
Of course, the only problem is Microsoft is no longer Apple’s competition – it’s Google, and they’ve got quite a lot of creative people over there. As Bryan said, Google is “taking the piss”. (Where the hell did THAT saying come from?) 2010 will be the first WWDC where Apple has really had to respond to the competition, so it should be pretty interesting.
And yes, my expectations are high, and yes, I am ready to be let down, and yes, I am ready to buy whatever Apple announces.
Redefining “awkward”
A lot is being made of this video from 2007 of Bill Gates purportedly “predicting the iPad” in 2007 while sitting next to Steve Jobs at the All Things Digital conference. Personally I don’t think Bill is saying anything that someone who grew up watching bad sci-fi movies from the 80’s hasn’t envisioned for the last 30 years (guilty) – plus odds are by 2007 there was already an iPad prototype in Cupertino. However, Bill’s opinions are not what interest me here. I’m posting this clip solely because it may be the single most awkward interview ever done by any person. Ever.
As interviewers go, Walt Mossberg is certainly no Mary Hart (and Mary Hart is no Mario Lopez, who is himself no Kathy Ireland).
[via Gizmodo]
Steve jobs calls the kettle “black”
Filed under: Apple Bashing, Cynicism, History, Opinion, Steve Jobs, Theft, iPad, iPhone
“It’s just common sense not to use another company’s trademarks in your app name.”
Those are the words of Steve Jobs in response to an e-mail from app developer Chris Ostmo whose journalPad app was just forced to undergo an expensive re-branding or risk being pulled from the app store for including the word “Pad” in the title. The problem of course is (aside from the fact that Apple does not actually own a trademark on the word “Pad”) is Apple has done the EXACT SAME THING in the past. In fact, it only recently obtained the legal rights to use the term “iPhone” for its phone from Cisco, and the term “iPad” from Fujitsu. Both companies had products selling under those names at the time that Apple decided to put theirs out, yet they went ahead and used another company’s trademarks in their product name.
One could argue that Apple’s tactics are far worse than those of Ostmo, as no one would confuse his app with an actual iPad, where Apple was stealing other company’s hardware trademarks and slapping them on their hardware. One accidental internet order could make for a very unhappy (although presumably stupid) customer.
Still, as is the way of big business, the big fish eats the little fish, and Apple had the millions of dollars to buy the trademarks out from its fellow tech giants, where odds are Ostmo can’t buy “Pad” from Apple.
Even if it owned it.
Which it doesn’t.
[via 9to5]
Attention Time Travelers: Your iPhone may not work in 1990
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, History, Slow News Day, iPhone, video
I knew there was a reason I didn’t throw out my Motorola MicroTAC 9800X!
Faithful Macenstein reader Colin writes:
I was bored and trying to find something to watch on Hulu when I saw this:
I thought you’d get a kick out of it, apparently going back in time 17 years totally screws with the iPhone.
Wow Colin. You know, I’ve been bored before, but I guess I’ve never achieved the “Let’s see if there’s any old Journeyman episodes on Hulu” level of boredom before. Of course if any of us went back in time 17 years the first thing we’d do is try to find a way to buy as much Apple stock as we could… unfortunately we would die of Facebook and Twitter withdrawal long before we could figure out how to invest without the internet.
Mosspuppet’s thoughts on the tablet
As so often happens with humorous videos, this 5 minute iSlate review by the Walt Mossberg puppet is about 3 minutes too long, but still probably not too far off from what we’ll read in Walt’s column tomorrow.
[via 9 to 5]
Apple’s iPhone makes an audio cameo in Minority Report 5 years before it’s released
You know that little sound your iPhone makes when you plug it in to charge? If you’re like me, odds are you never really thought much about it. Frankly I just assumed it was some low level sound wired into the guts of the iPhone. But as faithful Macenstein reader Greg discovered, that sound has been around for some time, and has in fact had a brush with none other than the King of Hollywood Royalty, Tom Cruise.
Untitled from Dr Macenstein on Vimeo.
So I was watching Minority Report on my MBP, and I thought i heard my iPhone being plugged in… in my head phones! I scrubbed back to hear that when the retinal scanner confirms a positive ID it makes the sound when you plug in an iPhone. Funny. Did apple steal this sound? Was it a stock Sound effect from a library? Probably. Just thought I’d share.
What’s interesting about this to me is the realization of the amount of time and thought that must have gone into settling on that particular iPhone “chirp”. Yes, it appears the sound is probably from some standard Hollywood sound effects library, which means it was someone’s job at Apple to sift through 1000’s of sound effects on hundreds of discs, select a number of compelling clips that sounded like what you might imagine a futuristic “connection” sound should sound like, and then odds are, given how high profile the iPhone is, there was a meeting (or more than likely, a series of meetings) where these clips were played to the Apple elite, discussed, tried out, then rediscussed, ultimately resulting in what you hear today.
If only as much thought went into Minority Report.
(here’s a youtube version for the vimeo-impaired).
This is why virgins shouldn’t write sex apps
And just how the hell am I supposed to do that?
Purely for research purposes I decided to check out “A Sexy Party Game for Lovers 1.5“, one of the 40,000 “sex game-themed” apps on the iTunes store. And I hate to admit it, but apparently I am doing EVERYTHING wrong.
Hopefully the next tip says “Make up some excuse for your creepy behavior, like claim you have asthma, and try to get them back into the room.”
Getting turned on yet? This one actually should be easy, as I assume at this point their “secret fantasy” is that you’ll STOP massaging their hands.
Is this even physically possible? Whisper about one thing while singing about another..? Hold on, let me count my mouths… One… Um.
This guy also has an unhealthy fascination with people’s shoulders. Although not quite enough of an obsession to have learned to spell the word correctly… (Warning the following is NSFW. Not because it says anything dirty, but God help you if someone sees you reading this…) Read more
How we got the “Command” symbol
I was in need of the ⌘ symbol for a top secret project today, and not knowing the proper Unicode combo by heart, I fired up the old character palette to copy it. While there, I noticed that while all the other symbols had the expected names (“Erase to the Left”, “Upwards White Arrow”, etc.) that for some reason, Apple was calling our beloved “Command Symbol” “Place of Interest Sign” instead.
Since that name is not nearly as cool, I decided a quick Google was in order, and at the risk of my more pretentious “I already knew that” fanboy readers ridiculing me for my ignorance, I found the story on folklore.org by Andy Hertzfeld (one of the key members of the original Apple Macintosh development team during the 1980s) interesting enough that I thought I should share with the class. Read more
Video: The Macintosh Software Dating Game with Bill Gates (1983)
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, Geek Love, History, Humor, video
I once told a friend that I got “douche chills” watching a comedian bomb on stage. He had never heard the term before, and asked me what I meant. I wish I had had this clip then…
“Apples are Red, IBM’s blue, if Macs gonna be the 3rd milestone, I need all of you!”
Yes, douche chills are that odd, physically “chilling” sensation that runs between your shoulders and down your spine caused by feeling incredibly embarrassed for someone, and I was pretty much embarrassed for everyone here. I had seen the excerpt of Bill gates talking up the Mac about 1000 times before, but I had never seen it in the full context of this clip. Bill’s professed love of Apple loses something now, as it is obvious he really thought he might get laid if he won the game.
Thanks to faithful Macenstein reader Mike for the tip!
