Apple Releasing Home Media Center: iHome

John Leger writes "Despite legal challenges faced by the rumor sites, The Apple Blog today is releasing what appear to be exclusive early concept models of Apple products." Interesting concept, and features a large disk drive, ipod dock, and wireless connectivity.

April Fools!

[Jozer99]

The tipoff is the 2GB of standard RAM. Apple ALWAYS under-powers their computers in terms of RAM.

Re:April Fools!

[gb506]

I really, really dislike this day of the year.

Re:April Fools!

[Poltras]

Yes, but it's so neat that only apple engineers can come up with this kind of design. How could it be an april fool? Nobody can fake it...

Re:April Fools!

[RaffiRai]

Also the 450GB HDD.

AFAIK, last I checked a few months ago the largest standard harddrive in mass production was 500GB, and the notable one elss than that was 400GB. 450 doesn't make sense. 3 150GB platters?

Re:April Fools!

[Locke2005]

The other tipoff is the port on the back labeled "DIGIATL OUT". Nevertheless, this is the most plausible put-on I've seen today... and I think it would actually sell if released!

Re:April Fools!

[farmgeek]

Or the "Digiatl" port on the back, unless Apple always mis-spells things on their products too.

Re:April Fools!

[poot_rootbeer]

Or the "Digiatl" port on the back, unless Apple always mis-spells things on their products too.

Prototypes of their last attempt at a set-top box, the Apple Pippin aka Bandai @World, had a "RETRUN" key above right-shift. Kibo even made fun of it.

Beyond that, every "Macintosh" ever released has a misspelling on it. The (fruit) apple variety is spelled "McIntosh".

And everything ever written onto an Apple Newton ended up misspelled...

Re:April Fools!

[Deinhard]

Another clue...the iNote [theappleblog.com].

Re:April Fools!

[the_sidewinder]

A better name than iNote would be iPad, IMO

Re:April Fools!

[Pecisk]

Hmmm, it is kinda difference between Media Center and standard workstation like MacMini or iMac, who sopposted to be stable and be able to manipulate with lot of media, including DVD foward/backward, which in fast version simply requires some kind of caching in memory. So it could be real - at least your argument can be overthrown very easily.

No...

[Winckle]

the tip-off is that its posted here, on /.

Re:April Fools!

[wolf68k]

Silly me, I thought the tip off was the fact it was called iHome

Re:Wow

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

It's more cool, don't you think, if releasing that kind of information isn't legal.

Too bad its a joke

[DavidLeblond]

That really does look like a sweet piece of equipment.

Obligatory Post ...

[valmont]

Imagine a Most Entertaining, Action-Packed Beowulf Cluster of these!

Re:Obligatory Post ...

[Shadow Wrought]

Now you too can over 3,000 movies simultaneously in the comfort of your own home with Apple's new iBeowulf Xtreme Media system. Remember, if your brain isn't pulpy goo by the end of the day, it wasn't an iBeowulf!

ENOUGH ALREADY

[TrippTDF]

At least make the AFJ SLIHGTLY believeable!!!

Re:ENOUGH ALREADY

[Xoro]

At least make the AFJ SLIHGTLY believeable!!!

I bet the Mac users fell for it...

wireless power?

[slashkitty]

since there is no power hookup in the back. yeah, and the 450GB hard drive.

Re:wireless power?

[the unbeliever]

Sure there is...the same time of power connector used by the Mac Mini (that thin vertical connector on the left)

However, I was mightily disappointed to see "digiatl out"

Re:wireless power?

[Epsillon]

It does sort of have a DC jack on the LHS (presumably a photoshop of the same connector the Mac mini uses). It also has "Digiatl" outputs which sound pretty cool. Easier to say than SPDIF, too ;-)

Re:wireless power?

[tobiasly]

Besides that, Apple would never release a product with that many jacks in the back. Too confusing for non-techies.

Re:wireless power?

[poot_rootbeer]

Besides that, Apple would never release a product with that many jacks in the back.

True. Apple would design a new proprietary Everything Port, and then sell you various breakout adaptor cables for it at $29.99 each.

I dub thee....APRIL STUPID

[TiggertheMad]

This isn't an April fool's joke, It's an April Stupid Joke(tm). April Fools jokes are at least capable of fooling someone into believing it, thus the name 'April fool'. Try to make a decent attempt, ok?

Re:I dub thee....APRIL STUPID

[Rude Turnip]

It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't so much news about people dying and being near death lately.

Re:I dub thee....APRIL STUPID

[TMonks]

The specs may not have fooled anyone, but ive got to give them props on the pictures, they look like they came straight out of apple's design department

I like the 8-track-style iPod dock.

[poot_rootbeer]

ive got to give them props on the pictures, they look like they came straight out of apple's design department

I agree, these look a lot more like actual Apple products than the last batch of design ideas commissioned by Business2.0 did.

The only fatal flaw I see is that I think a real Apple universal remote would incorporate the iPod's click-scroll-wheel interface rather than discrete rectangular play/stop/fast-forward/rewind/pause buttons.

Nonetheless, I think this hoax is TOTALLY EFFIN SWEET and I hope

If only

[johndierks]

I'd love to have an Apple built set top box. Apple's thoughts on UI design and the importance of functionality would make a product with these features a great addition to my living room. Too bad it's April 1st.

Re:PONG?

[ABaumann]

Don't be crazy! You know you can't play games on a mac.

Re:PONG?

[Scrameustache]

Don't be crazy! You know you can't play games on a mac.

Preposterous: I've played a rousing game of cards using my mac's tower as a table! ;-)

Plausible Enough to be Cruel

[Cr0w T. Trollbot]

The features make sense. The pricepoint makes sense. The thing looks cool.

The is a remarkably cruel April Fools taunt for Apple fans and Mac owners. Good job!

- Crow T. Trollbot (Apple fan and Mac owner)

Giveaway

[Paperweight]

The Slashdot article itself says it's a concept. Are the editors even getting tired of April Fools? It's well after 12 PM pacific time, so you're only catering to Hawaii now.

Re:Giveaway

[TelJanin]

It's April Fool's day, not April Fool's morning.

Re:Giveaway

[Paperweight]

It's another outcome of globalisation!

The OS X version of Knoppix

[quiksan]

interesting idea posted on The Apple Blog http://www.theappleblog.com/2005/04/01/apple-plant ing-iseeds-with-kitty/ [theappleblog.com] still unlikely, but cool.

"iHome" a dead give-away

[Pfhreak]

If you're going to make an April Fool's joke about a new Apple media center, at least come up with a new name, instead of re-using one that was already used for a well-known hoax [tecknohost.com] when the rumors of the Mac mini first surfaced.

It looks nice, but...

[Smiffa2001]

...with everything released/leaked/announced on April 1st, I'm always skeptical. As with gmail, I'll believe it when I actually use one. Though these do look nice and 'Apple' though and judging by the sucess of the iPod it should scream off the shelves.

Despite it's probably stellar price tag.

Alternatively, there is the other Apple 'hoodwink' over at the Register too...

Re:It looks nice, but...

[r.jimenezz]

As with gmail, I'll believe it when I actually use one.

If you haven't used one because you don't have one, see my signature. This one's no April fool, they are actually duplicating the storage.

Re:It looks nice, but...

[Smiffa2001]

Cheers for the offer, but I've got 50 invites to give away too. Which reminds me, whats the likelihood of google eventually charging for a gmail account? I don't really use it a great deal because of the possibility...

Of course

[blackmonday]

They got CPUs wrong. There's no 1.5 ghz G5. Add 100 mhz and it's a little more believable.

Can't be real.

[CosmeticLobotamy]

That's so obviously an April Fools joke. The DVD remote had more than one button.

Re:Can't be real.

[Holi]

Nope it only has a power button, The rest is LCD.

Why am I even bothering.

Someone worked really hard on this...

[lpangelrob2]

If they'd have spelled "digital" right, this story had been posted earlier in the day, and the specs were more reasonable, this one coulda been a contender.

As it is, I think an iPod-like scroll wheel on the front side of a receiver-like thing makes for a poor input device for something that is more complex than an iPod... but I could be completely wrong. :-) What features do you guys use on your receivers?

iPod scrollwheel on other devices...

[douglips]

My brother has a microwave with a knob that acts like an iPod scroll wheel. It sucks hard to use that thing, mainly because the first item that comes up is not "cook something" but "bacon" (alphabetical you know.)

Please, mighty Slashdot editors...

[JonLatane]

Stop this madness. I know it's good fun and all, and for a while I got a kick out of it, but it's just gotten ridiculous.

CmdrTaco: "I know! Let's post stories so implausible our readers will never even think they're funny!"
CowboyNeal: "Even better, let's fill up the entire front page with them. That way, if there's nothing else to see, maybe they'll think some of them are real!"

I really hate to sound like a troll (really I'm not!), but how about something a bit more well thought out? Perhaps change the entire page to make it look like you guys were purchased by Microsoft (kind of like Maddox did his page that one time). It's gone from cute to childish to downright annoying.

Reality Check

[cybercobra]

This is about as real as the XBOX2 ThinkGeek (http://www.thinkgeek.com/ [thinkgeek.com]) is selling.

To Ed: Okay, I plugged it, where's my cut? :-)

All this jokes are starting to piss me off..

[Fr4ncis]

What about posting some genuine news today? And now even an iCopulate banner on the top! Anyway I've never seen an Apple product released and publicized on Slashdot before Apple.com itself. Need some good jokes here, wops midnight here..

april fools day?

[1nhuman]

If this is a april fools day joke I'm going to be pissed!

Scrollwheel ain't all that and a bag of potatochip

[johndierks]

An iPod scrollwheel on the front face of a device like that would be a nightmare to use. The scrollwheel on the iPod is useful because of the orientation of your hand.

Trying to use the wheel with the tip of your index finger, especially while the unit is not at chest height would prove to be very annoying, very quickly.

no no no! apple fool

[imothepixie]

Come on! thinkgeek's stuff was barely believable but this late in the day and this long after the last keynote any apple rumor is just plain foolish...

Missing information in article

[srmalloy]

However, the $1,500 base price doesn't include the optional iBathrooms, iBedrooms, iKitchen, iLivingroom, and iDen, or that it will be available only with varying configurations of these 'optional' components preinstalled, which is expected to drive the price up to a range of between $40,000 and $500,000, depending on configuration and delivery location. While there are currently no plans to offer an iGarage, the iHouse will come standard with a docking adapter, the iCarport.

muhahaha

[killerface]

This is great, not only is everyone getting pissed but even the ads are advertising the fake products thank you slashdot thank you

iHome and iPodTreo

[yet another coward]

Are you trying to tell me that my wishlist is a joke?

Hahaha... Joke on them... be slashdotted

[imgunby]

It was clearly a joke, and yet for all the bitching and whining, "we" still managed to take them down. Who is the Fool now? :-)

Jeezus...

[DesScorp]

...you guys aren't even trying anymore, are you?

I must say...

[NRP128]

That that is just cruel. There are already a ton of concept products out there people have photoshopped that i only wish Apple would adopt, now the list is even longer :( an iNewt or any of hte varies of updated newtons, Tablet Powerbooks, video ipods (which a tabletPB with a 9" screen would work for as well ;) ).

iHome and iNote

[owlmon]

The linked-to article has a further link to a web page describing a new PDA: the Apple iNote.

The iHome (as described) is *almost* realistic. The disk drive and DRAM are a bit too big. Otherwise, the imaginary iHome would be a good product, and welcomed by many.

On the other hand, the iNote (as described) is pure comedy.

i for one ...

[valmont]

... welcome our new Apple Overlords in the Living Room

Note how story is phrased!

[valmont]

I quote:

John Leger writes "Despite legal challenges faced by the rumor sites, The Apple Blog today is releasing what appear to be exclusive early concept models of Apple products." Interesting concept, and features a large disk drive, ipod dock, and wireless connectivity

Nothing in the above quote claims this actually came from Apple. "early concept models" can very-well be that the author woke-up one morning early, scratched his ass, and spent the next 72 hours relentlessly drawing-up those images.

This