Apple Tablet Twit | Hacker News Reader

Apple Tablet Twit

cringely.com

30 pointsmorphle33 comments

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/frantic_steve_jo...

"Frantic Steve Jobs Stays Up All Night Designing Apple Tablet

CUPERTINO, CA—Claiming that he completely forgot about the much-hyped electronic device until the last minute, a frantic Steve Jobs reportedly stayed up all night Tuesday in a desperate effort to design Apple's new tablet computer. "Come on, Steve, just think—think, dammit—you're running out of time," the exhausted CEO said as he glued nine separate iPhones to the back of a plastic cafeteria tray. "Okay, yeah, this will work. This will definitely work. Just need to write 'tablet' on this little strip of masking tape here and I'm golden. Oh, come on, you piece of shit! Just stick already!" Middle-of-the-night sources reported that Jobs then began work on double-spacing his Keynote presentation and increasing the font size to make it appear longer."

Or read the original source which they conveniently forget to mention.

http://twitter.com/jason

I think SlashGear's commentary is spot on:

"we wouldn’t put it past Jason to be stringing the Twitter world along, what with the amount of hype and speculation we’ve seen recently"

http://www.slashgear.com/apple-tablet-hype-continues-calcani...

This is a fib (and a fun one at that).

I think it's rather obviously not real; sarcasm, a joke, or whatever.

For one thing, why doesn't he turn the device over and see what its name is, rather than calling it "Apple Tablet"?

Solar pad charger, that doesn't really work? Very unlike Apple.

Calacanis says he "can't show device or say actual name", presumably due to a legal agreement. (http://twitter.com/Jason/status/8270966356)

Uh, but he is allowed to say anything else about it?

Besides, he previously used "my NDA is basically over" as a pretext for spilling the beans about it (http://twitter.com/Jason/status/8269986584).

So which is it? Does he care about the supposedly just-about expired NDA or doesn't he?

Indeed, because they do work quite well. I have a CD case sized panel and I charge my phone with it in normal daylight. It pumps out about 500ma in bright sun so takes about 2 hours to charge my G1. For better utility these are cool too http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Solar-Power-Battery-Charger-for-iPod-N...

I've bought two solar chargers in the past, and neither worked on my iPhone, although they did work on other phones. The way I understand it, the 300-500mA output of this and other compact solar devices just doesn't cut the mustard with the iPhones, which have a current requirement above standard USB specs. If I'm wrong, and/or you know of a pocket-sized solar charger that'll do the trick, do let me know.

I linked to Cringely and not the original source for a good reason. Cringely is a professional journalist with a good track record who always checks his sources, not a me-to blogger with a personal rumor. There is a difference.

Yes but Cringely just lifted the content straight from Jason's tweets. The way the post is written makes it sound like Cringely was the tester, which is just untrue.

Cringely started with stating the source was an alleged beta tester "in a position to know."

Cringely ended with "that's not me that's the beta tester."

No confusion here - Cringely is citing an unnamed source which he trusts enough to pass on.

Cringely just copied the original source, without mentioning it. Content wise, no difference.

Commentary is in the podcast at the top of the text (it's not obvious) where he does mention the source

Yeah, 'from a beta tester' who's @jason seems like a diservice to his readers. But then, that's cringely, the ever present crap stirrer.

Look at the headline of the article. Cringely knows it's a goof.

Maybe Name-calling (DH0) and Ad Hominem attack {DH1) is not the best way to respond to Cringely, a professional journalist? See PG's take on that at http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

best way to respond to Cringely, a professional journalist

Yeah well DH1.5 appeal to authority and DH2. Responding to Tone isn't much better. Since Cringely is a Professional Journalist it is kind of sad to see him not accurately representing the source of the info he should know better.

professional journalist?

Is that what copy and pasting tweets and not citing sources is now?

5$ says this is a hoax. Any takers?

There's no way it's real. First, there's no reason Jason Calacanis would have this tablet. Second, even if he did have it, he wouldn't be leaking this nonsense. Third, HDTV tuner and PVR? On a tablet? Come on. Solar pad on the back? This is nonsense.

Deleted comment

Err, no. He stated he has one; it doesn't confirm a thing. The article's content came directly from his twitter account -- I don't see why this helps.

There's no story here, just some BS tweets. I have a feeling his response tomorrow is going to be along the lines of "Hahah, you people actually bought this?!"

Wait a minute, I thought it was obvious that this is a fake posting. Please tell me the rest of these HN posters didn't actually think that Bob Crignley (or jcalcanis, for that matter) ACTUALLY thought these were real specs?

I honestly thought each post in this HN thread and comment on the Cringley 'article' was just "going along with the joke".

As satire, it's not particularly funny. I think that's what probably threw some folks off the scent.

Shh! I'm trying to make some money here.

(I mean, duh. The headline is Apple Tablet Twit.)

Nope. I agree with your guess, especially given the latest tweet from the source : http://twitter.com/Jason/status/8271607924

... also, Farmville for Apple tablet is a huge game changer. I know for a FACT Mark Pincus is onstage tomorrow with Jobs.

and the previous one:

Off to bed, but I assure you I'm not joking and the specs are real.... Most of all that this is best gadget ever made and NOT overhyped.

Please stop sending traffic to these stupid stunts!

HDTV, solar back, fingerprint reader aside, another not so believable feature is the 2-3 hrs battery when using wifi (should be always on) considering that netbooks already have 5+ hrs duration. Btw, it's still not clear to me what kind of market ("living room" users, gaming, healthcare) this tablet, if it will really be released, is trying to target...

Yeah just a stupid prank.

Techcrunch posted about it earlier and later updated the article saying that the info is false. http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/01/27/jason-calacanis-possibl...

Just because they say so, it does not make it false ;)

We will have to wait and see :)

Again with this apple table hype... http://www.pidjin.net/2010/01/25/iwish/

It sounds very promising, but we'll have our own opinions soon enough.

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