After several days of the rumour mill running at full speed, it looks like we might finally have some hard information about the upcoming special event. MacShrine has posted a picture (via TUAW and Engadget) of what appears to be a pre-production sample of the much rumoured video iPod. |
| CREDIT: MacShrine (via TUAW and Engadget) |
Interestingly this looks a lot like the leaked images that circulated in the hours leading up to the "One more thing..." announcement, which turned out to be accurate. The serial number on the picture reads "MB719ZA", and according to MacShrine the Chinese characters on the tag read "this way up", which doesn't exactly help us out a lot...
If this is a fake, it's a very good fake indeed. I'm still wondering about the iCal related invite though, could we be looking at an iPod with at least some PDA functionality? Now that would be fun...
Update: Does that cable look like the MagSafe connector from the MacBook Pro to anyone else, or is it just me?
Update: There seems to be some discussion over on TUAW about the veracity of the Chinese characters,
The Chinese isn't written by a native. The characters aren't even consistent with one another as each character has the same radical, but whoever wrote this didn't know that and they wrote each radical differently, an idiosyncrasy NOT characteristic of any Chinese speaker. - Eno Compton
Strictly regarding the so-called Chinese characters, the two characters are copied incorrectly. I'm assuming they are supposed to be 这边, literally meaning "this side". I can't remember if the two characters are in long-form or short-form Chinese but aside from the incorrect use of root characters within the two characters, the stroke patterns, ie. number, direction, connection of strokes, are also incorrect. most definitely not "written" by native Chinese speaker nor anyone with a formal education in Zhongwen. - TimothyHowever a video iPod would fit well with the other rumours (via The Register) of a iTunes movie store, so I guess your milage may vary.
Update: Despite these images, Apple Insider still seem to think that we're looking at an updated Mac mini. Interesting, do they have a source, or are they just guessing?
Update: Dan Abrams has had a close look at the picture, and has come to the conclusion that it's a fake. Unfortunately his analysis looks pretty sound, so on balance it's looking like this is yet another video iPod hoax.
Update: Following close behind a second image of the video iPod, a video showing how the fake image was made has shown up (via Digg). It looks like we have to conclude that this one, at least, is definitely a fake. I must admit to not being a little just a little bit disappointed...
Quicktime 3.4MB
Update: Coverage of the Apple Special Event and the new Intel Mac mini, and my musings on the importance of a $99 leather case...
Update: In the wake of the special event more rumours about the video iPod, possibly shipping as early as March, have started spreading...
The ibooks need to updated much more than the ipod, but the ipod it the bread and butter for Apple!
ReplyDeleteAs a native chinese, I am prettey sure the chinese characters in the original image is written by a native chinese. The reason two radicals are written differently is because there is an old way of writing it, and some chinese workers who are not very literate still use the old way. It's very common for someone in a chinese factory to write exactly like that.
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