Is this the video iPod (or Mac tablet)?

We have zero idea what this thing is, if it's real, or if it's the same kind of factory leak we saw the day of Steve's "One more thing..." keynote where he introduced the 5G iPod, but this does look a bit promising as the video iPod that people have been speculating about for a while now. (And yeah, we're assuming that would be a touchscreen on there.)

[Thanks, rosswf]

[Dani @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:24PM]

#42:
You have a point, doesn't seem like an actual 16:9 scaling there. Though i guess by the size it looks more widescreen then the 5g ipod. Also considering the source of the picture and the past reliable proof they provided on the 5g ipod imma say it's real. Though if it isn't no biggie, I'll just stay logged on engagdet since last time they kept posting upto date info lol. Got my card ready on hand that day if it is real :-D

[macattack @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:25PM]

Ok, so here is my math, a dock connector is exactly 1 inch wide, so give or take a little, if that is a dock connector that would make this device 4 inches long and 2.66 inches wide, the current ipod is 4.1 inches by 2.4 inches, so give or take a little this device is almost exactly the same size as a 5G iPod. In my opinion I think its real. Not to mention that cable looks exactly like the cable for my car iPod dock. w/ the two cables coming out of it.

[jl @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:25PM]

AH, thanks for the link. After checking the previous leaked photos , I come to realize this may be real. The photos showed a Chinese cigarette brand �double happiness". This will collaborate the simplify Chinese characters " this side". The photos were from mainland China.

[Brian Short @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:27PM]

Ender

[Glancing Aft @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:28PM]

If this is real I'm disapointed, it looks like apple is using the same old screen which loves to get dirty and scratch... It's going to be great for a touchscreen....

[Paul @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:32PM]

"if you look closely, only the cardboard is off center. the actual plug is perfectly in the middle."

Actually, even though the brown tape does go over a bit, I still think the plug looks off-center. I mean, compare the distance between the bottom of the plug to the bottom of the device and the top of the plug to the top of the device.

Or look at the colour stripes. It goes right down the middle of the device. To my eye, the plug has more distance on the top.

Also, I agree with others posted that the dock cable could be one of those cables with both USB and FireWire. I thought briefly that it could've been a Dock-to-RCA cable, with maybe just video and mono, but that kinda seems like downgrading. Who knows, it could just be a third-party cable.

Looks pretty real to me, btw.

[pelcinary @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:32PM]

I'm not a graphics genious (and I'm not being sarcastic)....but could it be a piece of paper taped to the top of an ipod. It looks a bit crooked. The bottom and top edges have black exposed and don't fill the "screen" correctly. Furthermore, the little barcode sticker could be holding it on. Huge grains of salt all around...the to believers, and the non-believers.

[David @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:36PM]

it is not m8 but mb

[Ravana @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:36PM]

Dear Apple,

If that is a tablet, please design a car mount for it too.

kthxbye.

[justin @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:36PM]

it looks pretty damn real, all right. The question is, what is it? Look at the patents. It's a mac tablet. Phew. I thought my 5G was about to become obsolete.

[Paul @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:37PM]

"You have a point, doesn't seem like an actual 16:9 scaling there. Though i guess by the size it looks more widescreen then the 5g ipod."

How does this not look widescreen? Am I blind or something?

[Jonathan @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:38PM]

At first i was thinkin this was waaay fake because in the upper left hand corner it looks like there is a "true" screen under it... however now i am believing it is real... look at the serial # sticker, you can clearly see the "screen" and the red and blue and black colors through the sticker, and the sticker follows on to the "video ipod" where the see through light stops when it reaches the surface... THIS IS REAL GUYS!

[Ray S @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:39PM]

Uh oh...looks like the original link is down...the plot thickens

[Lee @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:40PM]

Well, the macshrine.com link now redirects to an 'account suspended' page!
Bandwidth max-out or Apple's lawyers stepping in?

[elber @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:41PM]

its the video ipod! not the itablet or whatever unless that cord is 3 or 4 inches wide

[touchscreen @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:42PM]

im not completely up on touchscreen tech but isnt the plastic or the material used for them general thin..like those used on palm devices..doesnt look like they have a thick piece of plastic ontop? because in that picture it looks like the screen thickness/material is the same as the case? it looks like current plastic casing on ipods, which to my knowlege is quite thick?

[zaphanatahpaneah @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:42PM]

Fake.....Fake.......and REAL fake. The display is photoshopped and that is a standard DB25 plug. The display size that the rumors and portraying do not match with this. Common guys......i'll bet $167.43 that this is as fake as Aliens landing on earth. Oops, hope I did not piss off anyone reading this in their star wars underooo's waiting for the mother ship to pick them up.

[Marco @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:43PM]

I find it funny that people have to zoom in to read the barcode text.

[Marky Mark @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:43PM]

Actually it looks kinda like a 16:10 ratio like the 17' powerbook.

[compson @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:43PM]

"account suspended".

i know it got dugg, but i'll get my tinfoil hat, regardless.

[uber0 @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:44PM]

"This Account Has Been Suspended," does anyone else get that when they click on the source site?

[jOHN @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:45PM]

Try clicking on the real/fake picture. For those who dont want to bother..... "This Account Has Been Suspended". Suspended you say? =|

[mark @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:45PM]

It seems compelling enough. Size seems right, materials seem right. Serial number and environment seem (kind of) right. Not to mention I was about to cruise through the linked site...but its "suspended". Hmmm, someone gets there hands on hot apple news that no one else has and then forgets to pay their hosting bill?

I think I'm calling it a legit Apple.

[slash @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:45PM]

Apple is an American company..

But why is the writing on the cardboard japanese/chinese?

[m @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:47PM]

This is fake, albeit a good one.

Firstly why is the screen simply colours, if they are going to announce this on 28th then they would have atleast sorted the UI out. I suspect it's because the faker couldn't be bother to have to deal with designing one.

Secondly the connector don't look right.

The shape is weird. I would have thought that it would be the same size as the current iPod, maybe a little thicker. This one is pretty wide though. Doesn't appear to be 16:9 or 4:3

The real deal breaker is the screen though. It just looks wrong. Look at the bottom with the black line, it's not even straight! The right hand side of the screen appears to be jumping out of the iPod.

I suspect it's just an LCD laid on top of a regular iPod.

[Steve @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:48PM]

A Chinese fella at my work confirms it means "this side".

[shelby @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:48PM]

orginal link down, with an 'account suspended' notice. looks like the hosting company has been contacted first.

also agree, this cannot be a tablet.. the cord would be 'h'uge'... looks to me like the brown cardboard is just to cover up the apple logo on the cord. =)

the truth is out there.

[sammy mazola jr� @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:49PM]

Account suspended == real (?)

[elber @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:50PM]

ok the dock port is on the side becuase you would still hold this device like you would an ipod today, its going to have frontrow on it maybe so you would just flip the device over and watch movies, the ipod knows that you are wtaching a movie so when you touch the screen the virtual clickwheel is faced in the direction for wacthing movies.
and to # 67, almost evrything apple is made in china

[Jason @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:50PM]

#68 because Apple manufacturers their American designed stuff in China (just like everyone else these days).

Duh.

[Gordy @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:50PM]

Well, at least the timing is right. I mean, it has to be real since it cam out after the invitation and before the event, right?

Besides, those product numbers are for marketing--urm, inventory tracking. They wouldn't be assigned in the lab.

[Brian Short @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:51PM]

They might have run out of bandwidth.

[Dani @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:51PM]

"""You have a point, doesn't seem like an actual 16:9 scaling there. Though i guess by the size it looks more widescreen then the 5g ipod."

How does this not look widescreen? Am I blind or something?""

To some ppl it may not seem that way due to the size, compared to say a psp's screen, the psp looks more wider. Then again I'm probably just more confused by the size of the pic or actual unit. Looking at it more carefully it is widescreen, just needed more time to realize it lol. btw, i wish it was tuesday already lol

[nicholas @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:52PM]

The perfect profile, larger than a Newton; smaller than a tablet... If it connects to a 30" monitor, tis it! OS X makes it actually useful as opposed to my Tablet PC.

One can only hope! Time to update SketchBook Pro!

[Jay Liu @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:52PM]

As convincing as this looks, I'm afraid I'm going to vote fake on this for two reasons.

First of all, the Chinese characters on the piece of cardboard do not look like they were written by Chinese at all. Handwritten Chinese and on-screen Chinese is somewhat different, and this is obviously an attempt to copy the on-screen version of Chinese characters straight off a computer screen. What's more, the letters are malformed, and look like they were written very painstakingly, sort of like those of a young child who is trying to copy the teacher's alphabet from the blackboard to his notebook.

Number 2, the characters "zhe" and "bian" separately mean "this" and "side". But together, "zhe bian" actually means "here", which does not make any sense here. "This side up", however, would look very logical on a label of this sort, however, "zhebian" does not usually mean that. So I went over to babelfish and tried to have it translate: "This side up". Quite predictably, it returned "zhe bian", which adds to my belief that this was created by someone who wants to give the impression that this photo was taken from a Chinese factory.

Anyway, I give a B for effort, but watch out for those upward flips for the last stroke of "bian". Practice makes perfect! :P

[z @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:53PM]

The site going down is probably because of the tremendous audience it has had in the last minutes. First the page was removed, then the site reached its quota, probably... Seems real, and would be as expected by most of us...

[Christopher Dechter @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:53PM]

It is indeed 16:10 (which is the same as Apple's displays). A quick look in Photoshop gives a pixel ratio of almost exactly 16 to 10. I think the connector is also indeed centered as we have to account for image distortion from the angle of the picture.

I spent a few minutes trying to correct for the lens distortion and ended up with this:

http://dechter.shackspace.com/ipod6/apple_device_corrected.jpg

[Drew Thaler @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:55PM]

"The display size that the rumors and portraying do not match with this."

Hahahaha, that's the funniest thing I've heard in a LONG time. The rumors don't match, so it must be a fake? :-) Kuality.

[Tim Buckingham @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:55PM]

And... the site has already been "suspended" :)

Makes you wonder...

[Brian Short @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:55PM]

Jay Liu - so what about the device? You're basing your assertion that it's a fake on the *label*?

Are you saying that it's a render or something?

[elber @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:56PM]

the screen may look kind of weired because I think its covered in a layer of plastic wrapping, I think.

[John @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:56PM]

This thing looks HELLA fragile. Can't wait for the "broken Screens" lawsuit yo! Amma straight up cop this.

[The Mole @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:57PM]

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this were the true "video iPod" that uses a touchscreen. However, my worry is that the screen will get scratched to bejezus, or if nothing else the screen will get lots of smudges. The PSP has the same problem. Either way, this would be the most obvious design for the video iPod.

[m @ Feb 23rd 2006 1:58PM]

Just realised something else.

If this is a video iPod then you are going to want to watch it in the profile that is shown in the picture. Surely then they would have placed the dock connector on the bottom side then rather than the right hand side?

[allanalfabet @ Feb 23rd 2006 2:00PM]

#20 sez "judging by the metal along the outsid, i dont think apple would mix aluminum and plastic like that" -- I doubt that's metal. I'd assume that to be a raised edge for scratch-proofing. Which totally makes sense when you think about how much real estate on that thing is the primary function.

I vote real.

[Andrew Howe @ Feb 23rd 2006 2:01PM]

The dock connector is not an apple dock connector, but one made by griffin- a quick photoshop of the image at froogle http://froogle.google.com/froogle_cluster?q=ipod+connector&pid=2058786457371351913&oid=2171286994958290623&btnG=Search+Froogle&ei=7QT-Q5f8IqDsqwKb0ezXCw&sig2=mcCTAKKLw8LNOiOd8KOx9A&lmode=&addr=&scoring=mrd&hl=en

As well, photoshopping reveals that the blacks on the upper left corner are in fact crushed and make a steady gradient, which would insist that the test pattern was most likely not photoshopped into the image. The histogram does not insist there was any serious alterations in this image. My vote: Real, or someone had a lot of fun gutting a broken iPod and modding in an LCD display.

[Michael @ Feb 23rd 2006 2:04PM]

I would buy one in a heart beat. I think this is real and that we will get more information about it within two week.

[Samt @ Feb 23rd 2006 2:06PM]

I'm not sure about the pic, but i don't think apple will be coming out with another ipod since the 5G ipod just came out recently. It just wouldn't make sense to release another ipod so soon, UNLESS, this will come out later this year.

[cuttah @ Feb 23rd 2006 2:09PM]

i say this is the real ting.

[Ray @ Feb 23rd 2006 2:11PM]

Here is a better look at what it should look like. This image has been on the site for about a year now

http://cimg.163.com/tech/2004/10/22/200410221629270f906.jpg

G5想象图

容量：260GB，可以存储120200首歌曲；128MB FLASH EPROM

处理器：摩托罗拉 龙珠 500MHz芯片

操作系统：MAC OS X for Handhelds 7.1

内建软件：Safari 1.1；Quicktime player Handheld Editon 7.1；iTunes 5；Address Book 1.3；iPhoto 4 Handheld Editon；Salling Cliker 2.1；Apple Media Manager 2.1

数据传输：WiFi，蓝牙；火线接口；