The Mac Observer

Skip navigational links

You're viewing an article in TMO's historic archive vault. Here, we've preserved the comments and how the site looked along with the article. Use this link to view the article on our current site:
Strange Pic Of "Apple Device" Appears/Disappears On Japanese Site (With Pic, & Updated

Strange Pic Of "Apple Device" Appears/Disappears On Japanese Site (With Pic, & Updated)

by , 12:00 PM EDT, May 31st, 2001

Update: The mystery has been solved. Observer Ahnyer Keester has pointed us to a product called the WebPad II Internet Appliance from Honeywell, which is clearly the product image that was modified to include the Apple logo below. We are leaving the original story as it was first published. You can check out the WebPad II's Web site for all the details on this device, including the original unaltered image.

We received a note from an anonymous Observer with some text and an image that reportedly came from a Japanese Web site. This comes squarely from the it-can't-be-real-but-we-wish-it-were files, but we thought it entertaining enough to share with you. What we have is an image of a slate-looking device with an Apple logo at the top that appeared along with a story that says it is a prototype being shown by Apple to NTT DoCoMo, an electronics manufacturer. According to our anonymous contributor, the image, the article, and the Web site itself disappeared shortly after it was first posted, and conspiracy theorists and Mac fans bored from waiting for MACWORLD New York alike are free to speculate that it was by order of Apple Japan. For the rest of us, here's the image and the translation of the story's text:

I managed to copy this from a Japanese Web site yesterday. It is gone now, as well as the site (was on GeoCities). The link from the Japanese site to the site that went down is also gone.

Japanese text read (something like this..)

Apple showed a new Internet device to NTT DoCoMo officials (iMode giant) two weeks ago. The device is like a portable tablet, but slides into a dock that has CD, keyboard, and other I/O, etc. A PC style card was also plugged in the device, an NTT PHS (PHS is similar to cellular) mobile card (top left). Buttons had nice blue glow (bottom right) wireless keyboard also shown, and the top right is a BLUETOOTH-based device. The side's are rugged plastic handles. The screen is a 15" LCD. The demo also included several of the devices using an AirPort base station to surf the web.

(I can't translate the rest of it.) Picture's background was removed to protect the guilty. :-) The article seems to say this is a new iMac when combined with "base dock," but my translation is rough.

Thanks to the anoymous person who stretched his Japanese translation skills to their utmost to bring us his translation.

The Mac Observer Spin:

We have published images of a few devices that looked awesome, but were fakes, and we think this is yet another. It's cool though, as are most of the fake Apple products on the Internet, and we would love to see the company bring something like this to market. Since Microsoft is working hard on a tablet PC, it does stand to reason that Apple will lead the way, but this probably isn't it. It is interesting that the link to the article and the article itself disappeared so quickly, but it was probably not from pressure from Apple.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Comment on this Article

Comments are currently closed. Please email the author instead.


Recent Headlines - Updated July 6th

Mon, 11:17 AM
Ted Landau's User Friendly View - Apple’s LED Cinema Display: A Too Short Story
11:11 AM
Product News - Photo Recovery for Mac Adds Photoshop Support
10:39 AM
Hot Forum Topic - iPhones in Education
8:47 AM
News - Apple Employee Injured in Store Shooting
Fri, 10:29 AM
News - Apple Warns of Learning Interchange Security Breach
7:30 AM
News - Happy Fourth of July!
Thu, 6:07 PM
TMO Scoop - Psystar Moves to Drop Bankruptcy Ahead of Apple Legal Battle
5:37 PM
News - Uncomfirmed Reports Say Apple & Nvidia On The Outs
4:57 PM
News - Microsoft Sick Over Barf Ad
4:09 PM
Product News - KRK Ships R6 Passive Studio Monitor for Recording
3:45 PM
John Martellaro's Blog - Particle Debris (week ending 7/2)  Juiced, Joost and Goosed
3:12 PM
Product News - ExactScan 2 Pro Released

The Mac Observer Reader Specials

  • Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com
  • OWC: OWC Mercury On-The-Go FW400/800/USB2/eSATA Portables. High Performance A/V Rated. Bus Powered. Up to 500GB in the Palm of your Hand. Macworld Editor's Choice. CNET 'Very Good.' From $75.99!
  • Poker Mac If you're using a Mac, then you've gotta check out Full Tilt Poker for Mac. This Full Tilt Poker bonus code does the unthinkable, it actually rewards!
  • RamJet Memory: MacBook and MacBook Pro 4GB kits for $57.99! Mac Pro 4GB Kits $99.99! iMac and Mac mini 4GB Kits for $57.99! 1TB SATA Hard Drives for $109.99! Click here
  • For the latest Apple products use Ciao, a price comparison website, to find laptops like MacBook Air. Then find the best prices on MP3 players and use our comparison tool to evaluate mobile phones like the Apple iPhone.

  • Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.
  • __________
  • Buy Stuff, Support TMO!
  • Podcast: Mac Geek Gab
  • Podcast: Apple Weekly Report
  • TMO on Twitter!