Now after the hype is down, I think itıs time to discuss, the iWalk rumour
in more detail.
I think then we first saw the infamous videos a week ago the blood pressure
jumped and turned us all temporarily insane. The very thought that our
lusting wait for the New Newton is finally , suddenly and totally
unexpectedly an itıs end was simply too much. And then all those troubles
we have to go through to save money for new unit , the tempting alternative
to call it an infidel and traitorous and stay with the good old MP2000U -
this is what was on my mind. And of course the ability to analyse what I
see was compromised by the danger of being ridiculized in a week time if it
turns out itıs not being announced after all (thatıs what happened and it
happened before) .
Now itıs all over. I looked on the videos again , and again, and again. I am
an expert in video and 3d . I showed it to many other experts in that area.
The thing is flawless. There were millions of negative responses on the net,
but none of them was indeed critical , most of them were simply emotional
exclamations pointing something that is not there to point. Something like
saying that text jiggles, no it doesnıt ! As far as noise due to video
compression allows to see the text and the unit are perfectly aligned , and
the bump at the end of one of those movies only supports this. I could image
stabilise it in Commotion to show it irrefutably if someone is still
doubtful.
The most outranges of all those remarks was of course the one mentioned on
macrumors , it was about HWR being unable to work the way it is shown in the
movie, obviously by one of those Gates Lovers who never even saw Newton. And
as an answer someone shot a movie of his Newton doing similar writing on it.
It looked so much the same way as it is shown in iWalk movie , only
recognition was a bit slower the angle , the way the actual contact with
the screen is obscured by the hand, everything. And this was what really
made me start thinking.
Now there is no doubt that there was an actual physical object which is
shown in the movie. It is not made of papier-mâché and so far we failed to
recognise as being some other gadget masqueraded.
So then comes the idea of overlaying an image of the screen. I give 98%
probability that itıs not. Putting aside the way interface is made , both
believably roughish on finishing and nicely pleasant in petty details, like
the way button bar appears with a delay. The way colours match, two shadows,
light obscuration by the hand, reflection in the screen and in the knob .
Letıs put it on vote, but only among those who actually done some
bluescreening and video composite making.
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. And there definitely were many
prototypes of iPod made , probably even very stupid looking and with much
more ambiguous things on them then ³unrealistic jog-dial² and people walked
around using them, filmed them, break them. Lets accept it, we know nothing
what happens at Apple.
Itıs 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.
And here is my point :
I think it really was a prototype of an Apple handheld device.
The question is not as much what it is, but when it is, and where it is.
Cold it be that it was made long time ago, theoretically ?
We saw Paul Guyot making the ATA driver single-handedly in a year and not
only that, new hardware has been made mass available SER01 and screen
replacement is on the way. How much it would take Apple to produce a
prototype like this iWalk in last five years ? Plausible ? At list more
plausible then existence of group of geeks that produces virtual gadgets
better then Hollywood does for fun. If they really do exist, they are
looking for a job at ILM right now and iWalk would be their triumphal work
and they would be going around boasting to everyone how they did it !
Still the question is who could film it, and where.
Iım not touching the dilemma of will the iWalk ever be seen in our hands.
I am a hardball pessimist and I am dwelling on the idea of all the good
things being killed brutally sooner or later.
So Iıd say NO.
But lets just be fair and realistic .
Denis Krasnov
-- This is the Newtontalk mailinglist - http://www.newtontalk.net To unsubscribe or manage: visit the above link or mailto:newtontalk-request_at_newtontalk.net?Subject=unsubscribe
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Feb 01 2002 - 16:02:11 EST