Apple's New Digital Device

[MacRumors]

Mike Ryder wrote in to tell us of a Yahoo News article describing "the
unveiling of a breakthrough digital device," by Apple on Oct. 23. And according to Apple, "hint: it's not a Mac."
Very interesting. Sources near the company claim it's likely a digital music device. Portable MP3 player? Component CD-RW / MP3 player?
Quite the intriguing report.

 

[arn]

please be a Newton

arn

 

[Newton-Man]

Newton.com updated

According to uk2.net and a whois / trace-root search. Apple has re-registered newton.com as of the 16th of October.

Curious!

Guy
--

 

[blakespot]

Newton

Wow. That would be INSANE if they came out with a new Newton. Christ. But, I dare not let myself get hopeful for such a device. I would throw my iPAQ on eBay so fast it would make your head swim, if a new Newton was released.


bp

 

[sbarton]

newton.com

Did http://www.newton.com always point to http://www.apple.com?

 

[arn]

yep, newton.com always pointed to Apple - every since Newton was killed.

... and Apple never let Newton.com expire... they've held onto it. They probably just reregistered it because it was expiring. But... who knows.

I have my doubts they would use the Newton name again...

arn

 

[Newton-Man]

Gigawire Connection

May it be that this GigaWire technology could like the "New Digital Device" to your mac???

Thanks,

Guy

--

 

[motion]

My guess is it's an airport-enabled MP3 player that looks like an audio component.

 

[mymemory]

Can you imagine me with a Newton? in place of carry the Pismo every where, even the TiBook still too heavy. A Newton with a firewire port would be long way too nice.

 

[From Win to Mac]

LOL !

right... a FireWire Newton

 

[Insider]

I SAW IT!

It is a music device, but not what you think! God its so AWESOME!

Its WAY better than any MP3 player because it plays ANY QUICKTIME FILE FORMAT!

It looks like a TiBook/iBook (squared, clean lines, muted tones, metallic) only like small-ish. It runs on batteries or bus powered (yes, bus powered when plugged into a Mac).

When plugged in it mounts like a drive, drag 'n' drop to from it (on OS X only, 10.1 includes secret support for it, read the release notes they mention it). Unplug it, its standalone. RCA audio out stereo, phono plug stereo out, small LCD screen some controls to see file names and play/stop/skip features.

CRAP someone's coming! EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED. DELL CANT TOUCH THIS!

 

[gman]

pda Palm/Blackberry killer

lets hope it is not a mp3 player! There are enough of them out there! However, PDA's are are there also, but all not close to a newton! I have had all ipaqs,visors, and palms!

Apple has a chance to bring to the market a better pda just by updateing the newtons tehnology up to todays current standards. If handspring can converge PIMS and cell phone/data in their treo line without a OS behind it then Apple with its OS X theme of digital hub and converging audio,PIMS,wireless etc......

We will see a PDA from Apple soon........they know no one has hit a homerun yet.....

gmapes@teamrepro,com

 

[ThlayliTheFierce]

Whatever

Sorry but I'm a little unconvinced by Insider's post. Who in their right mind would post on a rumors site while at work???? Let's just say I remain skeptical, although those things do sound reasonable.

 

[ThlayliTheFierce]

I feel so young...

How about a little info here? The Newton was a little before my time. What exactly is it that's so great about them? What do they do that others today don't?

 

[iBug]

shhh, don't tell anyone.

it's a smartphone on steroids. complete with pda, music and video.

 

[arn]

newton

where to start?

You'll hear a lot of flak about the early newtons...

Newton OS 2.1 on the MessagePad 2000/2100 was awesome. There were limitations, sure... (mostly connectivity to desktop PC's) but overall, an insanely fine package.

First, the OS was designed to be a handheld OS. It tried to throw out the desktop metaphor because it didn't apply.... things like crossing out text erased it. To copy text, you just dragged it to the side of the screen where it "stuck". Then to paste, you just drag it back. The handwriting recognition was excellent. I've heard rumors that only now Calligrapher 6.0 is surpassing Apple's handwriting recognizer.

The entire system/OS was very unique. All data was stored in "soups" - which were sort of commonly accessible data structutes...

the beauty of this is all apps had access to other app's data... as well, they could easily extend the data sets.

As a result - NO information should be entered twice. I want to call my friend 'Fred'. I can write 'Call Fred' in the notepad, tap on Assist, and it will go to my addressbook, get Fred's phone number and bring it into the Call application....

Or, if a new app comes out that does anything - prints mailing labels, it just pulls address data from the addressbook.

anyway.... the biggest advantage of the Palm was size.

arn

 

[ThlayliTheFierce]

very cool

Sounds like a very intelligent design. I wish I had one. Anyone else want to add some thoughts?

 

[Doraemon]

codename?

Does anyone know the codename of this "new digital device"?

Thanks!

 

[Holaoha]

just guessing

Check out this link.
Maybe Apple will use this in there new "device"

http://www.c-cube.com/cat_display.fcfm?Cat_ID=54

Would be great

 

[Archie A. Poole]

TV

If they are using c-cube, counld't it be something that allows you to use your imac/desktop mac to record TV programs on DVD-R? or to hard disk?

 

[jon2620]

IEEE 802.11 (Airport™ in Apple-glish) enabled portable thin client

http://www.geek.com/features/macolumn/

especially this paragraph

Recently, I read an article suggesting that Apple is developing an IEEE 802.11 (Airport™ in Apple-glish) enabled portable thin client, built on a low power-consumptive x86 chip (hello, Transmeta!). The device will allegedly simply run an OS X shell; the actual processing and storage will occur back at the family/office PowerMac. Hmm, does it seem plausible that Apple is slowly and slyly shifting from a "Single/Multiple-User PC" paradigm to a "Server Appliance/Thin Client" paradigm to anyone else? I wondered what Jobs meant by his obscure reference to the Macintosh becoming the "Digital Hub" for our new "Digital Lifestyles" over the next coming years in his second-to-last keynote address. It seems Apple might have to get on this new "tablet" bandwagon, as Microsoft surely seems to be pushing the notion--though MS wants your entire system on-board, and Apple's alleged strategy would enable much cheaper hardware than a standalone Tablet PC from "the competition" with its onboard storage media.

 

[natedavis]

I am Excited

I don't really know what Apple will Release this next week, but I sure know I am excited. For once we know something big is coming, and so it puts everyone on edge. All I know is whatever it is, Apple will make the best product it can.

I just love Apple

 

[jeffrs]

what happen to no new harware

Hmmm... wasn't it a month or two ago that Steve's was making some comment about no new hardware for the rest of the year... nahhhhhh, must be thinking of someone else =)

 

[spikey]

It doesnt seem logical to me for apple to make a music device.
Still be kool seeing as this is really apples first big move towards their digital hub dream.

 

[Bull]

A New Device Speculation

<a href="http://www.slimdevices.com">Slim Devices</a> has the Slashdot'ed network MP3 player. New Apple product, assuming that it IS a music device, might be something like this. Also, after they reported that the serial# 0001 machine had rolled out, they disappeared. Could they have been bought out by Apple?