With Apple's "
Showtime" event just around the corner and
new minis and iMacs already on the market, there has been a surprising dearth of rumors surrounding the world-changing products that will inevitably be announced on Tuesday, so we're here to fill that void with a juicy and plausible -- but entirely unlikely -- bit of dirt. The story goes like this: a gentleman calling himself "Jeff Foster" just happened to be working on his brand new blog (red flag #1) when a friend of his who supposedly just got a job as an Apple rep decided to endanger his newly-acquired position by sending Jeff some blurry cameraphone shots from inside the storied halls of Cupertino headquarters (red flag #2). All three images that Jeff "received" depict a previously unmentioned desktop called the "MacTower" (positioned the exact same way in each photo -- red flag #3), with one of the snaps (pictured above) blowing the lid off an all-new 24-inch Cinema Display complete with built-in iSight camera. This MacTower -- which looks almost exactly like the PowerMac G5 of old (red flag #4) -- is presented as a little brother to the recently-released
Mac Pro, and reportedly sports a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, up to 4GB of 667MHz DDR2 RAM, hard drive capacity maxing out at 1.5TB, a 16x SuperDrive, and of course, Bluetooth 2.0 and AirPort Extreme radios standard. Despite the many inconsistencies that make Jeff's story sound dubious at best, we decided to pass the info along so you all can have a nice Sunday picking it apart and screaming "Photoshop!" in the comments; oh, and Jeff, you're welcome in advance for sending a little traffic over to your blog's "very first post" (red flag #5).
Update: Red flag #6 (perhaps the biggest of them all): Several astute readers have pointed out that a commenter calling himself Jeff Foster made the
following remarks in another
rumor post we ran on the first of this month: "I really just want them to release a smaller tower... you know, so they'll have a mac mini, imac, something like a Mac Tower, and mac pro..." Coincidence? We think not. For shame, Jeff, for shame.
Update #2: Red flag #...oh what the heck, when the faker comes right out and openly
admits to his scam, all flags get tossed to the wind. From "Jeff Foster," in the comments section of this very post: "It's something i threw together last night a little out of boredom and a little out of, well, no, i guess totally out of boredom. just having a little fun." Upon much deliberation, we've decided not to unlink Jeff's site; however, if you're sick and tired of these frauds gumming up the rumor mill with this purposely deceptive crap, we encourage you to follow the Read link and let Jeff know exactly what you think of his little "boredom project."
[Thanks, Mike C.]
posted Sep 10th 2006 1:14PM
seems like redundent hardware...why not just buy an iMac 24? I don't think Apple would make two machines so similar.
Photoshop!
PLEASE BE TRUE!!!
I really need a Mac that I can use for music editing and playing CS:S bootcamped. I was about to get an iMac on August 27, but I decided to wait, because the iMacs weren't up to gaming par. Even the new iMacs with Core 2 Duo's had sub-par graphics. If this is true, I'll be a made man, with music editing powers and then switching to BCWindows to play CS:S on high settings.
year but only these are far from enough to piss the New Imac out of the stage.
FAKE. its obviously a fake b/c it uses Lucida Grande instead of Myriad Pro
Man, I need to make up some rumors soon. I could use the adsense income.
Jeff Foster, the Indiana Pacers NBA player? google it..him..
While i hope this is true, i hope this isn't the only item that will show up this Tuesday.
It's not my job to be observant, but on September 2 this year, this article about macs, here: http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/23-inch-core-2-duo-imac-rumors-begin-swirling/
was commented on by Jeff Foster. He said 'I really just want them to release a smaller tower... you know, so they'll have a mac mini, imac, something like a Mac Tower, and mac pro...
i want expandability... but not a crazy workhorse. just core duo and only 3 drive bays and half the ram and half the price... that's what i'm talking about.
i know the iMacs are sick, but i want 2 monitors, and i want real sized drives and PCI slots (er, PCIE or whatever) i dont want an all-in-one or a tiny non-upgradable box where everything is external. boo!'
Think it's the same guy? Check out my blog while your reading this.
I highly, highly doubt this will be true... But then again, how many times have us geeks thought that?
I would scream Photoshop, but seeing as how this is a horrible attempt, I am not sure a powerful tool such as Photoshop was used.
MS PAINT!
too bad apple call it the "SuperDrive" and not the "Superdrive"
FAKE.
Apple reps find out about new releases at the same time we do.
The specs on this thing make no sense. If it was a dual core mini-tower with a conventional motherboard layout, one would expect Apple to use Intel's Conroe processors.
The only reason why the iMac and the Mac mini use Merom and Yonah processors instead of Conroe is because they are considered small form factor designs with strangely shaped logic boards. The mobile processors are better for that kind of environment.
For a minitower, Apple would not use Merom because Conroe would be more bang for the buck. Conroe doesn't come in a configuration that is 2.0 GHz with 4 MB of L2 cache. The lowest end Conroe with 4 MB of L2 cache is 2.4 GHz...
2.0 GHz seems to slow anyway... if apple were to release a line of mid range towers, they'd give at least 2 or 3 options of processor choices... 2.0 Ghz would be at best a low end spec... and they would never advertise the low end proc... you'd see up to 2.67 Ghz or something similar.
Fake. This guy did a poor ass job of it too.
Yup, fake. Since when do Apple put up a poster encouraging rivalry between two of their products. Seems like it would clutter up their hardware line to a ridiculous degree. That's something that Apple have never done.
I'm not saying this is not Photoshopped or fake at all, but what has amused me in the past was when people swore Photoshop up and down and it turned out to be a real product. I remember this very well with the PowerMac G5 leaked photos ;)
Have a look at the right "edges" of the "MacTower" - the connection between the "handles" and the actual computer.
If this was an actual Apple Computer, their designers might have been busy designing some other great stuff^^. 'cause I don't think that they would accept a handle beeing 1/2inches wider than the actual tower^^
@ Delta Taph:
Yeah. I'm going to read the blog of a guy that doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're".
I'm 12... Forgive me oh great Jay. And anyway... I do know, but I'm typing fast. Okay?
It seems so strange to me that readers get whipped into a frenzy, frothing mad like a back-alley mutt, lambasting these efforts as heretical.
Isn't it just fun to see the ideas and concepts fly?
It doesn't matter if it's real or not... unless you plan to buy stock based on its validity.
Apple also never writes 24". It would've said 24-inch.
Hey Phil...
I noticed this too. The reason for this error is because the case cover on the right side of the "MacTower" is off.
I know I have seen these images of the Mac Pro, used in one of the shots before... then I figured out where he got the source images to work with...
http://www.apple.com/macpro/gallery/
Click on the 360 degree Quicktime VR tour of the Mac Pro on the right. There are two frames that he used as a source for the "MacTower" photoshop and one to show the Mac Pro next to it with its case off... They are the exact same images from the QTVR tour of the Mac Pro.
The QTVR has an error in it where when the camera swings around the front of the Mac Pro, the case door on the other side disappears... this error shows up in Jeff's MacTower photoshop as well. Also... for the "sibling rivalry" image, why is the Mac Pro on the left shown with its case door off? The reason is because the QTVR only gave him that shot.
Poor...ass...fake.
Oh c'mon.
Look at those handles on the mini tower.
That is just a very bad Photoshop-crop job.
Who would possibly take this thing seriously?
Actually, Jeff knows what he's talking about, he actually has been the guy transporting these things for the 12! The proof, yes, the proof: http://www.jefffostertrucking.com/
Oh it's all in good fun. Like Covert, i'm also surprised how angry people get.
lighten up all you crazies!
It's something i threw together last night a little out of boredom and a little out of, well, no, i guess totally out of boredom. just having a little fun. Sorry all ye faithful, didn't think it'd make you so angry!
anyway, cheers!
So where's the IR port for the remote? Obviously a fake. Apple would never release something so stupid looking.
The main reason that this is clearly not true: Jobs cutting down on the product line when he came back. Since he's been there the line has been pared down to simple to understand sectors and names.
Jeff Foster admited to making the fake
http://the-ish.com/blog/?p=5#comment-16
its over!
Message for Citizen: In the words of gud ole Arnie Swarzamiflip "STOP WHINING!!!! Now! I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions, and i want them answered IMMEDIATELY! What makes you think we care what you say?!?!?!"
Thanks :)
Engadget was just trying to add some spice to a boring Sunday. What the hell else are people going to talk about, that dumb ass tupperware UMPC?
Go over to Jizmodo. We don't need you.
I would love to see a new model from Apple that fills the void between the Mac mini and Mac Pro. Something with similar stats to the new iMac but with user accessible expansion and no built-in LCD. Heck if they include a couple of PCIe slots then I wouldn't even care if they decided to include Intel Graphics on the motherboard to help reduce the cost (in fact that could be really nice).
Anyway I do know someone who works at Apple as a programmer (he does something involving the underlying frameworks of the OS I believe) and he is often left as in the dark as the rest of us when it come to new hardware.
jeff foster...go play in the street
DIE JEFF FOSTER!!!
Has it occurred to you all that you can actually change your name on the comments section? I, for example could be Steve Jobs if I wanted to. Jeez. You guys are so over-reactive.
BTW: Oh great Jay, if i spelled anything wrong, i'll try to bee moor profeshunal in my commudications.
The magnitude evolving from our future released products carry such a magnificant force behind it that i am pretty sure apple will once again conquer the minds of none-believers and will enforce the current emotions from our loyal mac users.
Stay tuned for the 12th event i gurantee you will not be dissapointed.
We have spent numerous hours debating between whats right and wrong
we at apple listen to our customers and we have listened and paid attention to demands and we will release what you have asked for.
Our way of thinking is exactly diffrent, we actually listen, pinpoint & execute.
Have a good day
Steve Jobs
He's admitted it's fake. After I posted that very long winded article pointing out every last reason why it might be so, he posted here: http://globa-tech.blogspot.com/2006/09/september-10-mactower-lies.html#comments
LOL! Steve Jobs, yeah right. I'm sure he'd be using commas correctly. :D
Pissing off apple fanboys is a great thing!