'Pal', Internet Service Software for 10.3 (with Pictures) - Page 4

hmmm...

Does anyone remember the Logo for the Newton?

Wasn't it a light-bulb?

Yes, but it was very different. It was "sketched" in the style of the Picasso Mac.

oh crap, why did someone have to bring that up..? now my wheels are REALLY turning!

but steve has said apple cannot add value to the pda realm until he's been blue in the face (well, more like a purplish rage). steve has hinted at things, but has he ever flat-out denied something, then turned around and went ta-daa!

Aye, but it's not the same exact angle.

at first i thought that somebody has made a mockup. probably just using photoshop for designing the icon and settting the text on the front cover. it could even have been done as a cheap chop in one of those shareware aquafier apps or plugins.

anyway, the copy is set badly ... crap kerning etc. points to it being done either by somebody who isn't using quark/illustrator/indesign ... or doesnt know their typographic rules as they should. then they did a few variants of the layout and printed out a copy on an A3 inkjet, and stuck it to an empty box. We do it all the time for product mockups at work... cheaper than a wet proof and looks like the real thing for product shots and point of sale design.

some quick digital photos later, and we have shots of kosher packaging. the unusual flaring of the flash burnout made me think the paper might be inkjet stock, which is shiny and has a wider specular highlight than the kind of boxboard or display card used for such products. it being an inkjet run-out might also suggest why some people have commented on there being no halftone patterns on the alledgedly scanned a/w. unless apple uses some mad straight to plate stocastic litho solution or something

then i thought they'd seen an apple product box and realised that there is more than just an apple logo on the spine ... there should also be the product name. so i think the culprit then PS'd that copy on the side. hence the really bad text antialiasing on the bold, and the dispro'd lighter copy. PS is crap at handling transformed antialiased text sometimes, as has been pointed out before.

anyway, all those theories are interesting, but after staring at the pics more i am thinking that it looks more likely to have been photoshopped from scratch. i am intrigued by the logo itself though, and wonder if the following from toptechtips could shed light (no pun intended) ..
so NOW i'm wondering if there is a wee bit of truth to this ... mebbe some eager beaver (a junior designer or intern) somewhere has seen a single point of sale item and has managed to take a photo of it. possibly just the logo. after, even if chiat day or apple do all this kind of design in-house they would probably outsource at some point in the chain ... for digital mockups or similar. still might explain the lack of halftoning etc. then this eager beaver has decided to perk up the rumours with some homemade packaging and promotional material. their lack of copy-writing and extreme photoshopping skills leaves flaws that countless eagle eyed readers here have found.

Oh i dunno, mebbe i need to sleep on this, and then rinse them through photoshop tomorrow at work. i'd be interested to see what the same copy looks like set in adobe myriad pro and non-pro, in photoshop. and i'd be interested in looking at those burn out shots more, and the suspiciously regular gradients on the front of the box. anyone run those through PS yet and looked at the images hi-res to see relative colour values in different channels?

ah, too much rabid speculation. i'm off to bed

Wasn't that brought up like the first or second page? That's one of the first things I thought of, which makes me further think it's a hoax, because Apple knows the recognition of the Newton logo being a lightbulb. Why would they use another lightbulb?

Pal as a thin client sounds unlikely, but cool. It's something I would purchase, especially if it allowed me to select among my macs.

I still don't know what it does. O_o

ya but the newton is not a product anymore that was like 10 years ago, so they could use it, and it is a little different anyway

I realize how long ago it was and that it is different and all, but Apple knows how Mac-nuts are. It just seems that they'd be hesitant to use a light bulb.

We will never know if this is real or not unless it comes out, we will just have to wait till after panther comes out

You can say the exact same thing about the image on the .Mac box. Funny how Apple allowed that to slip through ...

Actually, the .mac item symbolizes a hub with connections, like the internet is.

Oh, I thought it was a fortune tellers cristal ball.
Well, not very telling anyway IMHO.

Strange angle photo's + Pictures now been pulled yet = Obviously fake.

My first post

Lets assume that this "Pal" thing is for real.


I think that "Pal" is a thinclient device especially for OSX.
That would also explain the 10.3 requirements since you would need multiple simultaneous logins (new 10.3 feature?) to make it practical.
This device probably has Quartz build-in, the host computer only has to route the Quartz drawing commands to the "Pal" device so it wil be fast even on slow network connections.
Airport Extreme (and Ethernet?) build-in, touchscreen/pen based interface.

Think of the possibilities of such a device!

Full access (Forget Disks, Forget Syncing) to your computer(s) from any WiFi (Connect over the air) hotspot.

Another advantage, such device does not need a harddisk or huge amounts of memory, it 'll be a lot cheaper than a tablet PC.

Welcome WebFlits.

I like what you have to say but I am not sure if todays bandwith could really handle that.

Welcome to AI, WebFlits.

What a wonderful thingie this would be. But unfortunately too good to be true.

Why not?
You can use VNC on a 64Kb ISDN connection and THAT uses compressed bitmaps. WiFi hotspots have a lot more bandwith.
When the host sends Quartz commands to the "Pal" device there's no need to send huge bitmaps!

I think this makes no sense as the iPod isn't particularly a consumer-only device and it was as "new" a product category for Apple as anything else.

Taken from an interview transcript with Steve Jobs :

I get a lot of pressure to do a PDA. What people really seem to want to do with these is get the data out. We believe cell phones are going to carry this information. We didn't think we'd do well in the cell phone business.

It could confirm a "Pal" device : I read that as if next Apple device will be able to get the information out of a computer which is the main feature of a PDA, as cell phones will do also. But Apple won't do a cell phone and prefer a field they already master. So no digital assistant per se but maybe a carriable extension of your Mac...

:drool: I would buy that in a heartbeat... wait - what's the price?

Seriously, though, as a student, I think it would be a really great companion to a desktop computer... just imagine taking it to the library for research without needing to worry about leaving any info behind. mmmm.

I sure do hope you are right, WebFlits

it creates ridiculous amounts of discussion on the internet... that is all...

That screenshot still looks cool.

It's fake.

If it was a real software box, it would be a better shot, show the back, and have the proper design scheme already set by Apple/whomever designed Apple's boxes.
And it's not a data synching app - that's gonna be part of Panther. Seperate the new features from Panther and no one has a reason to upgrade.

Not to mention this 'leak' would have to come from the design shop, not apple. and if said design shop leaked a photo - they'd be instantly fired, lose all of their work from apple and possibly be blacklisted if anyone else heard about it. Bam.


If it was a device - it would SHOW the device. Not a logo.
iPods don't have logos, nor powermacs, nor airport stations, nor airport cards, nor any other device or hardware that apple makes.
And devices certainly don't come in software boxes.

Have a look at this page on Apple's web site:

http://www.mac.com/1/learningcenter/

Go to the bottom 'Anywhere Access' 'coming soon'

it is probably training instructions for accessing .mac from other computers. nothing new.