Re: [NTLK] iWalk

From: Michael J. Hußmann (michael_at_michael-hussmann.de)
Date: Wed Jan 09 2002 - 09:07:37 EST


Denis Krasnov (dkrasnov_at_nyc.rr.com) wrote:

> Something like saying that text jiggles, no it doesn1t !

Well, to me it is obvious that it does. <shrug>

> Now there is no doubt that there was an actual physical object which is
> shown in the movie.

With that I agree. SpyMac had tried the 3-D rendering route before, and
failed to convince too many people, so they realized that starting with a
physical object and adding the finishing touches later was a better
approach. For that matter, it wouldn't have been too hard to do a mock-up
using an existing PDA with a color display. They could have done the HWR
sequence that way -- synchronizing the movement of the hand with the
changes on the display was easy, as the hand conveniently obscures the
actual writing.

These SpyMac guys are hoaxers. For example, in November 2001 they first
published several pictures, allegedly photographs of a soon to be
announced "iWalk", a rather odd looking, brushed-aluminium-type gadget.
Rather soon, people called their bluff, pointing out that the
"photographs" were actually 3D rendered images. And of course, what
really was announced by Apple was the iPod.

SpyMac hastened to explain that they had been betrayed by their anonymous
source, and that this source wouldn't be trusted again. But when they
published the new "iWalk" pictures and movies, they told quite a
different story: the iWalk looked so much different now because they only
had had the tech specs to rely on in November, but no actual pictures, so
they had to use their imagination -- in other words, they now admitted
that they themselves had created the "photographs" of the iWalk published
in November. And this I can believe, because Holger Ehlis, one of the
guys behind SpyMac, has proven to be quite an expert in this field -- see
<http://www.mac-life.de/download/index.php3>. So, how can those guys be
trusted in anything?

> Than look here . Just two month ago no one would believe anyone who would
> show a movie of iPod either. And at the same time Apple had a department
> working on design of iPod, everyone in the world was dead sure that Apple
> ceased any development of handheld devices.

There had been rumours about an Apple MP3 player well before the iPod's
introduction.

> It1s obvious that Apple has a handheld division still working, and to be
> completely true there is a OS (sort of) on iPod which is not OSX, so there
> are programmers working on development of some software components deviating
> from the big 3only one OS plan2, the thing that SJ made us believe.

Yes, the iPod has a (real, not sort of) OS which is not Mac OS X, and
it's not made by Apple -- they did stick to the one-OS-policy after all.
Compared to the Newton, the iPod is a very simple device. Apple didn't
need a whole new division to pull this off -- about 50 people had been
working on the iPod, the total development time being about 7 months.

I wonder why people still believe that Apple will re-enter the PDA market
eventually. I mean, how can one be disappointed yet again when there was
no real hope to begin with? How often does Steve "Newton Killer" Jobs
have to repeat that Apple doesn't do PDAs before people believe him? One
should have realized by now that in this case, "no" means no. (And I
don't really care anyway. Apple is in no better position to create a
worthy successor to Newton than anyone else.)

- Michael

Michael J. Hussmann

E-mail: michael_at_michael-hussmann.de
WWW: http://michael-hussmann.de

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