Back in the mid 90s, before the Second Coming of Steve, Apple was selling a device that, by many accounts, was years ahead of its time. This device was a relatively small hand held computer capable of performing tasks that stymied larger systems at that time. I speak, of course, of the Newton.
While other palm top computers of the day could barely understand gestures that the user had to learn, Apple's device could recognized written text -- almost any written text -- with surprising accuracy. The Newton could sync data with host systems, act as a mobile library, and keep track of to-do list, calendar events, and contacts. It could even read, edit, and create documents in formats used by other applications. And it could play games.
The Newton was based on alien technology that was deciphered and deconstructed from a device Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak stole borrowed during their abduction back in 1976. According to James Beezworth, who was a fellow abductee, the Steves were taken and "milked" so that they could father a race of alien-human hybrids who were smarter than normal humans and could tolerate sitcoms without mental degradation. (Mr. Beezworth was not so lucky; he had been abducted as an educational subject for one of the alien's Probing 101 class.)
It has been surmised that, upon his return to Apple, Job killed the Newton so that Aliens monitoring our technical advances would not get suspicious and link any missing technology to him.
That was more than ten years ago and technology has finally caught up with the ideas first made real by The Newton. There are some people who believe that the Newton never really died, but Apple kept working on it in a secret lab in caves deep in the San Bernardino Mountains. These folks postulate that the iPod, the iPod touch, and the iPhone are all the end results of these secret experiments. In particular, the iPod touch, with its ultra thin profile and slick but simple user interface, epitomizes all that is cool about the alien technology on which it is based.
But even as Apple enjoys success with the iPhone and iPod touch, there are people, some would say somewhat off balanced people, believe that iPod touch and iPhone are only shadows or precursors to the REAL alien technology soon to be made available to everyday Joe and Jills: The Apple Tablet.
I admit that I, too, have been caught up in the iTablet frenzy, pining for the one true successor to the Newton.
Though we've waited anxiously, each announcement from Apple has born no iTablet fruit. All had seemed lost until rumors started popping up all over the Internet about a new kind of device from Apple; a device like the iPod touch, but with a larger touch sensitive screen. A device that followed the otherworld cool design of the iPod touch and allowed users to access the Internet no matter where they happen to be.
When I started hearing these rumors I had to go out and see if I could find this device, this iTablet, for myself.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to be able to show you the fruits of my research. I have hard evidence of the existence of a device that could, in all probability, be the fabled Apple iTablet.
The New Mexico Encounter:
I was driving through Albuquerque, New Mexico earlier this year when I saw something familiar yet decidedly different out of the corner of my eye. When I turned to see what it was the thing had disappeared. I thought I was imagining it or that I was having a drug related flashback.
Earlier that day I had talked to a man who knew someone who was in the area when another guy's brother in law claimed to have seen Bigfoot. This man's account was so believable that it left me with chills. I had my camera ready in case I ran into the big hairy recluse.
As I drove on I kept seeing something in my rearview mirror. What really caught my eye was the glint of sunlight off the familiar Apple logo. My heart raced. I knew I was in the presence of something insanely great.
I pulled over and waited. There wasn't any sign of humanity anywhere. Not another car on the road, not a house to be seen, not even a Wal-Mart.
I had my camera ready. Just then, on the opposite side of a fence some distance away it appeared. I could have sworn it wasn't there before. I was so surprised to see it that I almost forgot to take a picture. I swung up my camera and clicked just as it disappeared behind some bushes, but I did get this shot:
Sends chills down your spine, huh?
Note the rounded corners and the iPod touch-ish look about it. That thing had Apple and aliens written all over it.
A Peek at a Peak:
Two months later I was hiking around in the San Bernardino Mountains. It was a clear day, not a cloud anywhere.
In the town at the foot of the mountains the locals were all scared about some strange lights they saw in the night sky two days before. They said that a bunch of chickens came up missing after the lights disappeared and that there was a peculiar smell in the air, like apple turnovers.
Of course, I was skeptical of the stories, just like I've been skeptical of the rumors of an Apple netbook. I mean, really. Why would Apple make a netbook that would siphon Macbook sales?
Yeah, sure, an Apple netbook might win over even more Microsoft defectors and it's true that an Apple netbook would include features that would make it compelling even to to the most ardent netbook haters, but Apple has said on many occasions that it is not interested in making a netbook. They might be interested in making something in the netbook space however, but not a netbook. That leave lots of room for interpretation.
See, netbooks are what normal humans can develop, and that's not a bad thing. HP's Mini 1000 and Dell (cough!) Inspiron Mini 10 are solid devices and can be coerced into running OS X. That's not too shabby for a Terrestrial device.
A device from Apple, however, would be so different that it's origin cannot be of this planet. Look at the iPod touch for instance; here you have a device that's so thin that you look at it edge on and it almost becomes invisible. Yet it sports a relatively large screen, can play all sorts of games, and can surf the Internet.
Now, look at the iPods before the touch. These are great devices and all, but compared to the iPod touch, a regular iPod seems downright prehistoric. Obviously the iPod touch is a device that is the result of years of dissecting alien technology, and Apple is just feeding us bits at a time to milk as much money as possible out of us before exhausting its alien research. Future iPod touches, in the near term, will have cameras, GPS, and more enhanced Bluetooth. Even further down the road we can expect an iPod Sense; a device that we won't have to touch at all. It will sense what we want and give it to us through direct nerve induction. (I'm told that this is that probing was meant to explore.)
OK, back to my last bit of evidence: So I'm in this town and chickens are missing and, sure enough I can catch a distinct whiff of apple turnovers every time the breeze changes direction, but I'm still not buying the strange lights story.
So I go hiking up into the mountains and I'm taking pictures of this and that. When I get home and examine the pictures more closely I discovered something unusual in one of them.
Take a look in the upper right of the photo. There is something trying to hide behind some boulders near the peak of a mountain. I think it's an Apple Tablet attempting to hide from my camera. How it got up there I'll never know. Maybe a teleportation beam got misdirected and that's where it ended. I tried to get up there for a closer look but it was getting dark. When I came back the next day it was gone.
Coincidence? You decide.
OK, this last bit of evidence is a real shocker.
A Cotton Tail Tale:
I was at a photo shoot when out of nowhere the Easter Bunny appears riding a bicycle. The rabbit waved at me as it went by. I was so stunned that I snapped the photo without thinking and the results are a little fuzzy, but you can clearly see the Easter Bunny, but more importantly, you can clearly see what I believe is a preproduction iTablet tucked under his right arm. I think the photo speaks for itself.
This makes sense. Who else can Apple trust with such a novel and obviously secret device? Santa won't do because of all of those elves, and Mrs. Claus is a known gossip.
So, I've presented the evidence and stated my arguments. Now it is up to you to decide for yourself.
Is there an Apple tablet device? Are there aliens influencing the design of Apple hardware? And to what end?
These are exciting times we live in folks. Very exciting times.