iHome Photos and Video

[macnews]

if I could dream...

Just to go in a different direction on this iHome...

I would love such a device that could do all of the following:

1. Record tv shows ala Tivo. I don't have a tivo but I like the idea of a "digital vcr" but hate how Tivo charges you - I understand why they do it (more money) but don't think you should have to pay for a "feature" like this.

2. View my photos from my computer. Right now, complete intigration with iPhoto. This would leave out those with a PC, unless iPhoto comes installed (a good move) and then those with MS systems could import their photos. Importing shouldn't be required for mac systems as it would eat up disk space to record shows as in #1 above.

3. Play iTunes through TV or what ever system you have hooked up for sound. Include in this iTunes visual effects. This shouldn't be a problem connecting between mac and pc systems. This also included iPod integration.

4. Play iMovie files on your tv streamed from you mac, wired or wireless.

5. Include wired and wireless abilities and even bluetooth. Also, can play DVD's, video cd's and music cds. Possible to even burn cd's.

The above would be the basics. Advanced, and more expensive options would include:

6. Ability to "share" screens like you can do on powerbooks or powermacs. It could go either way so you those watching TV could watch a demo from a computer or you could watch the tv show playing on your tv on your laptop in a different room. Note - not done through recorded files.

7. Ability to record tv shows and transfer to your computer to watch later or archive to dvd. Even import in to iMovie and edit out the commercials.

8. Include a dvd burner.

Yes, I know there are devices out there that can do these things but NONE do it easy and nice. This is what Apple is good at and VERY successful at. This is EXACTLY what they did with the iPod so don't give me Apple will never do such a thing. I think Steve is finally seeing the success of consumer electronics and certainly ties in to the whole digital hub concept.

Reasons why they should do something like this are:

1. profits - nice profit margins could be had due to the fact they already own and make the OS and applications so little cost there. This is also little more than a headless mac all you need are the video connections, like those missing on the iHome pictures. Profits will come from people who own macs, people with iPods and general electronics consumers who want a dvd player or dvr.

2. Increase market share for the mac. You are essentially buying a computer but how many computer like devices exist in your home today? Note, it is not marketed as a computer. A computer needs a monitor not a tv. This is designed to be a dvr/dvd/cd type of device but so much more. It is new, and would truely be ground breaking if it could work seemlessly with a "normal computer." MS can't do this- they have to market it as a computer because getting a windows machine to network is not easy for the average joe/jane. Other dvr/dvd players can't, and most likely won't, do this because it is not their area of expertise. What ends up happening is the halo effect like Apple is starting to see with the iPod. Imagine, someone sitting with a ms/intel machine using iPhoto on an iHome and asking why it is so difficult to do the same thing on an "actual computer?" Oh you can, check out this iMac...

3. The iPod has shown Apple can do well in other markets. The iPod, I believe, is successful due to the entire iPod/iTunes/computer seemless actions. It is bone simple yet what people want and expect. Apple has been the only company that shows they can do this.

4. It sets the stage for a ground breaking i(something) store where you rent/buy dvd's online. Pixar experience and reputation helps here, not to mention the precident set by itunes store. While other online music stores maybe lossing money or loss leaders, I don't think at 200 million (i think last reported) downloads iTunes store is lossing money. I also have spoken with Apple insiders who have told me it isn't lossing money. Economics of scale come in to play here big time.

5. #4 also sets up for a video iPod. I know Steve said he won't make one, but how far are you from that when you have an iPod photo? Perhaps it won't be the current form factor, perhaps something larger, but the possibility expands the entire digital hub and makes it truely a digital life component. Think being able to connect this to your car dvd player. No need to pack those DVD's any more, just like now I don't have to pack all my cds. I just take my iPod.

So that is what I would love. As much as I want to believe this iHome, I honestly don't think what is posted is right. We may see something else this coming week and if not, please please please make it Steve. If you make it, they will come. I suspect if we see a headless imac we will not see a iHome type device. That might be saved for the fall or a year from now. Allows Apple to gauge sales of the headless mac and further work out kinks of 10.4.

So that is what I want for a late, or early, christmas present.

 

[Cochrane]

I still wonder what the black point in the lower left corner, both on the front and on the back might be. My guess would be power connectors like on the iBook or PowerBook, mostly because many other things (the ports, as I pointed out above and the apple as well) seem to be taken from pictures of iBooks. But that does not really make sense to me. Even if Apple used these (I doubt it, but there are no other ways to get electricity into this box), why would there be one both on the front and on the back? Some say it is the power button. But why would Apple make the power button black and have one both on the front and on the back? Or is only one of them a power button? And if it is some kind of port for whatever, why isn't it in line with the others on the back? Just another thing that makes me even more sure it is a fake (not that I ever doubted it)

On the other hand: Things that are not there are not qualified to prove anything. After all, we never see the left side and we do not see the right side in sufficient quality to juge. To me, for example, it looks like there are no ventilation openings in the housing (the stripes on the back do not lead inside the box, so they cannot serve for ventilation). But that is not a point against this device, because they might well be on the sides. The same with the thief protection and the power inlet. Might be on the sides. Of course, having these on different sides of the device might seem unApplelike because it makes your desk even more a mess, but on the other hand I doubt that the idea of putting connectors both to the top and the bottom of the iPod was also a bad idea and Apple still did it.

If Apple has not done something like shown in the pictures, again it hardly proves anything. You remember when the specs of the G5 showed up a day before the WWDC in the Apple Store? Some people said then "These are fakes, brought there by some hacker, because there are dashes and not bullet points". But then, Apple was just working on replacing bullet points with dashes on product info, so that point was wrong. So the general points about the box it came in are invalid when it says things like "Apple always puts images of the device everywhere", because Apple might well decide to change that (for example, on the eMac box there is only one image of the eMac and not one everywhere).

But these are just my opinions on these topics.

 

[jamdr]

jamdr, while listening to you, I am SO glad not to live in a 500 year old supermarket country... you are kinda lame and ignorant... just my 2 cents and I am NOT a brit and NOT anti BUSH or anti US...as most europeans are sadly

this is just a reaction to your speaking crap

thank god not all americans are like you (or maybe is it you are only 13 year old...or 17 for that matter???)

I am probably older than you are, my friend . I was not trying to speak "crap," just the truth. And the truth is, in terms of the global market (especially in the tech sector), Britain is pretty inconsequential. It would make little business sense to cater to such a small and relatively uninfluential market when you need to sell the same brand globally. I think Apple would rather appeal to U.S. customers by using their spelling of "center", at the risk of alienating some British customers, than the other way around.

The fact that Centre is spelled in the British English way rather than the US English way isn't, on its own, the sign of a fake. IBM sell a workstation called the ThinkCentre, with the British English spelling of centre.

Fair enough. However, I think one difference is that ThinkCentre is the actual product name, not a description of it, and certain spelling liberties are sometimes taken when trying to create a unique brand. For example, I would be more inclined to believe iCentre, but not iHome - Media Centre.

 

[sheep555]

This off topic, but in regard to "theatre" vs. "theater". Theatre is how it is spelled in real English (everywhere except the US). This English spelling has been around for more than 500 years and is based on the Latin word "theatrum".

Yes, but I think it is worth pointing out that some "American" spellings actually occur numerous times in English Literature - just take a look at Jane Austen, who uses words like "centre" / "center" etc. with equal preference throughout her novels.

...and on a completely off topic, but I thought I'd give the US people here some credit, many scholars believe that the American accent is probably closer to the English of Shakespeare's time - take a look at some 16/17th century verse, and you'll find rhymes that won't work with an English accent, but more often than not will with an American one.

 

[cheese1113]

I wonder if the computer is wood or Styrofoam?

—Max

 

[Yvan256]

I am probably older than you are, my friend . I was not trying to speak "crap," just the truth. And the truth is, in terms of the global market (especially in the tech sector), Britain is pretty inconsequential. It would make little business sense to cater to such a small and relatively uninfluential market when you need to sell the same brand globally. I think Apple would rather appeal to U.S. customers by using their spelling of "center", at the risk of alienating some British customers, than the other way around.

You two seem to be forgetting something: english isn't spoken only in the USA and Britain... While the USA says "media center", the rest of the english-speaking planet says "media centre".

 

[tooflets]

iHome dummy

My take is that while the iHome pictures are almost convincing, what we're looking at as purported product is actually a dummy box meant to hold an even smaller headless Mac inside. The reason it appears so light in the pictures would be because the real thing is locked up in a vault somewhere until the keynote.

At the end of keynote, Steve would pull the iHome out from under the podium, hold it up and say something to the effect of, "Oh, by the way, I'm sure you've all been seeing the pictures of this going around the net in the last few days. How bogus. Like Apple could ever stoop to producing something so sloppy." At that point he then starts to throw it into a waste basket next to his podium, has a second thought's pause and stops just before letting it go, and proceeds to open the dummy iHome and produce the real device (whatever it's called) from inside - accompanied by the sound of the entire audience's jaws hitting the floor at the same time.

I can dream, can't I.

 

[Yvan256]

My take is that while the iHome pictures are almost convincing, what we're looking at as purported product is actually a dummy box meant to hold an even smaller headless Mac inside. The reason it appears so light in the pictures would be because the real thing is locked up in a vault somewhere until the keynote.

At the end of keynote, Steve would pull the iHome out from under the podium, hold it up and say something to the effect of, "Oh, by the way, I'm sure you've all been seeing the pictures of this going around the net in the last few days. How bogus. Like Apple could ever stoop to producing something so sloppy." At that point he then starts to throw it into a waste basket next to his podium, has a second thought's pause and stops just before letting it go, and proceeds to open the dummy iHome and produce the real device (whatever it's called) from inside - accompanied by the sound of the entire audience's jaws hitting the floor at the same time.

I can dream, can't I.

Hehe, it would be funny if Apple actually pulled stunts like this once in a while... We'd be hard pressed to figure out future hoaxes from actual Apple stunts.

 

[walkingmac]

ya... total fake! However I wish it weren't. after really thinking about it, the headless mac as a top box product... that would make perfect sense.

 

[mcmav37]

This would leave out those with a PC, unless iPhoto comes installed (a good move) and then those with MS systems could import their photos. Importing shouldn't be required for mac systems as it would eat up disk space to record shows as in #1 above.

All Mac computers ship with iPhoto installed, so this isn't an issue. Also, for people who might already have a Mac with an iPhoto library, the current version of iPhoto (not the new one to be released on Tuesday) already supports Rendezvous photo sharing so if there is a wired or wireless connection, you would be able to access your photos.

 

[freddiecable]

It looks cheap and non-Mac'ie! maybe that's the whole point...but I believe that apple will come with something else/design. the iMac G5 is in plastic but still looks great and a very nice finish...this thing looks plain...

 

[Paul.uk]

look at the right side of the imedia unit... the side of it is crumpled...now only cardboard would do that not plastic... and again on the top... stuck on piece of paper.. oh please what a fake

 

[Cheetah223]

Someone suggested that they could expect you to use an adapter to get RCA outputs. I really doubt that, it's possible, but really....Who wants that many cables lingering around? I say it's fake, looking at the pics initially, the device itself doesn't look very smoothly constructed, much like a cardboard box. On picture 8 you can see that the front is more bowed out than in other pictures, almost like he's squeezing a box and it's mis-shaping it. Also, all the pics of the front, the top-right corner looks like a cardboard corner that's collapsed part way, someone bumped it or pressed it or something. Same thing with the bottom-right corner on the picture of the back (picture 10)

The box holding it looks MUCH too big to hold that little thing, unless there's more they "forgot" to photograph. In photo 6, just like someone else said, the styrofoam doesn't fill the box, so there's another piece there to take up room..I doubt that. In photo's 8 and 10 you can clearly see lines that shouldn't be there to disrupt the "smooth" look of any Apple product. You can also see a slight change in the reflectiveness (can't think of the real word..) on top of it where that line is, such as from a shiny cardboard box to a piece of dull paper. The whole two-tone face it has looks kind of tacky, and I doubt Apple would release something looking such.

I'm gonna have to agree that it's fake unfortunately, I wouldn't mind having an Apple dvd player/TiVo as part of my home stereo.

 

[b-randomly]

Here's a slightly on-topic question that I want to throw out there:

If you were in an elevator with a brand new product and a camera, would you take those same ****** pictures? Or rather, what pictures would you take?

 

[centauratlas]

good call............ it took about 30 seconds to look ...

Except that through most of 2003 at least until Jan 2004 it was saying "Coming soon ", pretty regularly. Now, it appears to be not answering and no longer in business.

It appears it was a Delaware corp doing business in CA. BUT check out the status. It has surrendered the right to transact business in CA:
IHOME, INC.
Number: C2177676
Date Filed: 9/22/1999
Status: surrender
Jurisdiction: DELAWARE
Address
8400 MIRAMAR RD STE 290
SAN DIEGO, CA 92126

Agent for Service of Process
ANN GLYNN
4546 KICKAPOO CT
SAN DIEGO, CA 92117
(see http://kepler.ss.ca.gov/corpdata/ShowAllList?QueryCorpNumber=C2177676)

Does this mean Apple is using it, no. But it does mean that a simple whois search tells not much. It is probably a fake, but the corporate status is NOT one of the things that stand in the way.

Regarding the name, "Media Centre". I think they might use a different spelling in order to distinguish it. It looks better that way, to me.

 

[BruinJohn]

That's what I thought

Sorry, this isn't particularly on topic, but whatev. This is actually the first time I've ever posted, and I wanted to clear something up. As a musical theatre major, I can tell you that 'theater' and 'theatre' are actually two distinct words. 'Theatre' refers to the art form itself, i.e. 'I am a great lover of the the theatre.' or 'He was one of the theatre's great actors.' 'Theater,' on the other hand, refers to the building in which one acts, as in 'At what theater is that new play going to open?' or 'Wasn't it sad when that grand old theater burned down?'

Nowadays, people tend to use them interchangeably, using their preference for the 're' or 'er' for everything. In fact, most dictionaries now list them as the same word because of it. But if you want to be really correct about it, the difference is there.

This is actually what I thought too. The two things mean different things, or I should say they imply different things. I don't know how to explain the usage of colour and color though. But I do want to comment on this iHome thing. I agree with a lot of the posts about the poor packaging and shoddy unit. I also noticed that the bottome G5 box had tons of tape on it, making me think that it was opened, the computer taken out, and then taped up just for the photo. Even thought this unit appears to be fake, I think something like this would be great for the masses and potential converters who are already computer savvy. Here are some things I hope Apple announces at MWSF:

Date on Tiger's release
Flash iPod
iTunes enabled phone(maybe its part of the flash iPod)
sub $500 Mac
Powerbook upgrades
iTunes store for Japan
New Dual G5 configuration

Maybe all of this is too much to announce, but if they could at least announce it then have later shipping dates, that would be ok.

 

[yg17]

This may be a really stupid question, but I cant watch the video on that page with all the photos. I'm using Win XP, Any idea why?


Thanks,
Jordan

vedio here -> http://dms.tecknohost.com/macrumors/i/ihome/

you answered your own question

 

[clayton]

Thats pretty funny. I thought it was real until you pointed out the paper, good eyes.

Peace

 

[Yvan256]

Here's a slightly on-topic question that I want to throw out there:

If you were in an elevator with a brand new product and a camera, would you take those same ****** pictures? Or rather, what pictures would you take?

Are you asking tips for next year's hoax?

I do hope there's still an "elevator hoax" next year though, it's a nice laugh 2-3 days before the real show.

 

[JonMaker]

Looks fake to me.

Remember the last photos of a new iMac taken in an elevator?

Also, the spelling of center as centre: obviously not American.

Also, the arrangement of the photos of the "iHome" is obviously different from all other Apple products. With others, the item is shown at the angle it sits in the box. The iHome is shown perpendicularly.

The text "iHome" on the actual product is HUGE!!!

 

[ChrisH3677]

Below the apple, there's a line where there shouldn't be one... looks like... paper.

The corner of the device looks like paper-on-cardboard also.

I'm done. (azdude surfs elsewhere)

That line isn't paper, dude... it's sticky tape!! lmao

Notice how it is not just horizontal but vertical and wraps over the edge. And the right hand end of it is jagged like when you get sticky tape off a dispenser.

Also notice when you follow the bottom edge of the sticky tape on the front of the unit, it is not straight. The right hand edge is slightly higher than the left and what's more it curves down slightly in the middle.

 

[Sayer]

Ignore the Obvious

Look. This is a fake mockup.

The most obvious clue is that handle on "top" of the box and how the printing is oriented in respect to its location.

If you pick up the box by that handle, the printing is upside down. That is the bottom line.

The thing is a F-A-K-E okay? And Apple is an *American* company and as such it would of course spell it Center not Centre. Okay? Get over yourselves Europe, geeze.

You are not the Centre of the world. Two HUGE mistakes in this hoax, and no one wants to see them.

 

[mustang_dvs]

LOL! ROTFLMAO! I aM |337. 0bVIuzly, it's PLASTIC 'cuz it's sHinY. p@PeR cAN't b3 SHinY. LOL!

I can't believe that there are actually people who think that this cardboard box wrapped in paper is a real Apple product. It's a damaged cardboard box, with printed paper coverings, inside of an iBook box with printed paper coverings that just happen to be on UPSIDE DOWN.

Oh, and if you don't think paper can be "shiny" like the "plastic" in the photos, you've apparently never heard of GLOSSY PHOTO PAPER.

PS -- For all those who still foolishly "believe," consider this: with the looming switch-over to HDTV broadcasts, why would Apple choose to omit both the DVI or HDMI interfaces, and instead provide an iBook-style condensed VGA port for video out? (Not to mention the lack of optical audio, S-Video, composite (RCA) video, component video, etc...)

 

[ChrisH3677]

Here's a slightly on-topic question that I want to throw out there:

If you were in an elevator with a brand new product and a camera, would you take those same ****** pictures? Or rather, what pictures would you take?

You're right. I'd take pictures from all 6 sides to start with.

Plus I'd take pictures of the accessories.

Plus at least a few key pages of the manual.

Plus any other unique identifiers - barcodes, serial numbers, model IDs etc etc.

 

[ChrisH3677]

One other thing.. I think it's a fake elevator!