An image was recently posted to MacRumors’ forums by a “macrumors newbie” named “greenrabbit.”
Is this the first pre-Macworld Expo leaked image of Apple’s rumored ultra-thin subportable, complete with a nice wide trackpad loaded with multi-touch goodness? For some, that giant wide single button might raise the red flag of fake; it just doesn’t seem to make Apple-sense design-wise to us. It’s “non-Ivesian,” if you will — unless it has new uses previously unseen (for example, perhaps the left and right sides rock on a central pivot, so the button can have multiple uses. We call dibs on that idea, Apple, but it’s available for purchase). All that naysaying said, now watch them release it just like that on the 15th.
It’s that time of the year. So, real or fake, what do you think?
MacDailyNews Take: Perhaps “greenrabbit” should have named him or herself “whiterabbit,” instead.
The angle of it looks out of sync with the rest of the picture. Like it’s sitting on a different plane than the desk surface.
Fake, fake, fake. Too many things wrong here. Shadows off. Trackpad too big for area. Some blurring.
A pretty fair forgery, but not convincing enough.
FAKE
Wide trackpad & button – nonsense
Actually, for those who talked about shading, it is the best part of the mockup. The angles are very accurate, for most of the image. The light source is in the center behind both notebooks.
This is a fake, and that has been conclusively demonstrated by experienced image processing people:
1- The fact that the only part of the image with linear gradation of the shadow is the expanded trackpad (seems like a cut & paste job given the visible seem) is shown inthis post (scroll down to post #185 on the page)
and
2- The emphasis on the scaled down ports and a bit of sloppy painting was demonstrated inthis post (scroll down to post #338 on the page)
3- Another thing I noticed after magnifying the image is an unevenness in the subnotebook’s keyboard: look at the top row (fn keys) and the 2nd row (number keys) – not on the same plane. This might also be a pixelation effect though (this is a highly compressed image with poor resolution).
This wasn’t meant to be real… maybe you should try reading the forum this was taken from before posting it as a possible real spy shot.
I/O ports look too thin (squished vertically). Shadow is sharp on the left, but fuzzy on the right. Giant button looks ridiculous. Fake.
forgive me if this fairly obvious point has already been made (I haven’t read all 278 of the comments already posted)…but if this is real, wouldn’t he have the packing materials and box that it comes packed in? something else in addition to the hardware? …fake!
I was looking forward to the iTablet but not this thing.
Fake wouldn’t make this.
Put it in Photoshop and jack the curve up – I don’t like the dark black line that runs under the Dock, looks a but off from the angle of the screen.
That, and that big track pad it stupid and pointless. I call fake, and possibly an Apple plant.
Oh, and the shadow on the corner looks horrendous, too. I’ve seen better pics of bigfoot.
Green rabbit is Swedish or at least Swedishspeaking. The book in the background is Dan Browns angels and Demons (anglar och demoner). Could be the notebooks have been shipped in advance to be available for sale on the 15th?
F A K E
@Macaday
THAT?S WHAT I SAID CHECK MY PAST COMMENT. BUT NOBODY SEEMS TO CARE ! A SWEDISH TESTER ?!?! WHY?!
AND CHECK THE TWO DoCKS! IDENTICAL APPLICATIONS PLACED IN IDENTICAL POSITIONS!
DAMN IT WHY YOU ALL SHOULD BE SO MORONIC AND BELIEVE TO EVERYTHING?!
Such design makes no sense. Where are you supposed to rest your palms? Fake. Although I do like the overall look of it.
Also, the perspective is wrong on the subnotebook; it looks like it kind of sits at an angle into the table. The notebook that that picture was based on was photographed at a much lower angle.
I can’t believe that nobody else can see that.
I’m convinced by:
1) Looking at the icons on the screen. I think you really can see the rub out mark on the screen of the left one (it messes up the desktop image, leaving a dark mark where the icon was in the bottom right of the screen) and the right one, where you can only sort of tell in magnification that the bottom two icons were rubbed out. @Essence
2) From the post above about the right laptop’s shadow on the triangular white sheet of paper. It gets sloppy toward the right side of the paper where it looks like a person’s hand jiggled while drawing.
Besides, that massive button is heinous.
But some folks think Apple did this? Image that being your job. Boss comes in, hey, can you take the next two days and make me three images of fake laptops? We’re going to leak the best one.
Gosh. I’ve got the wrong job.
MW:could
Image that being your job lol. Maybe I should crawl back into bed for another hour.
it’s a 12” PB with some photoshop facelift
Also, I would like to add… Apple wouldn’t let anything new onto just anyones desk, you’d think an apple representative would have the latest or at least a recent iPod. Not a 1st gen nano.
The image looks like a normal photo with no evidence of fakery. None of the “clues” for a fake mentioned above holds water. Perspective, lighting, focus all seem consistent (the light source is between the two machines, hence the direction of shadows).
It could of course be an internal prototype which will never see the light of an Apple Store, but it is perfectly plausible as somebody’s work desk at Apple.
In just a few days we’ll see.
Upon further review, it is possible that is a can of “New Coke” – thus making this completely false…
Well, I *am* a Photoshop expert, and when I take a closer look at this, it gets worse and worse…
In the center of the trackpad on the “WeeBook”, there is a smudge were the gradation from left to right is uneven and too abrupt.
The line of the top of the track button is blurry on the left side, and especially bad at the top corner, where there is a slight inward notch. Why does it stick up so much farther than the normal MacBook Pro?
The area around the higher F keys looks horrendous. The last 4 blur together with the keys below them.
It’s running at least 4 apps from CS3. Looks like Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, and maybe Premier. The same apps that are on the big’un, and in the same order in the dock. So, you get an early copy of Apple’s new toy, spirit it away to Sweden, and immediately load it up with the Master Collection?
And speaking of Swedish – How many people do you think would have access to this prototype? Okay, how many of them do you think speak Swedish, and speak it fluently enough to enjoy a Dan Brown book written in it? My guess is, not very many. It would be monumentally stupid to give yourself away like this, and I would expect Steve would be knocking on your office door in short order with a pink slip and a bazooka before you could say “jävla dum”.
Back to the shadow again – The lower left corner doesn’t line up with the light source properly. You can estimate, from the way the light wraps around the rounded edge where it’s being lit from, but the shadow it casts on the table below is too vertical. It should angle more to the right. If you look at the slim shadow (slim shady?) that the paper below casts, it is more to the right, rotated more counter-clockwise, than that. Instead, it looks to be about the same angle as the iPhone casts, which would be wrong for the “WeeBook” as it’s at a different angle to the light. Looks like somebody forgot to click off Use Global Light. The chunky shadow on the paper doesn’t help, either.
Come on, now. I could take a better picture than this with an lousy iPhone camera, fercrissakes. And there is an iPhone SITTING RIGHT THERE. If I had the chance, I’d take clear, dead-on square, hi res shots of an early Apple product that I wanted to leak to the interweb, not sketchy Loch Ness Monster quality snow job like this. Remember that German movie of the supposed PDA years ago? I’m convinced it was an Apple-created put-on, and this is, too.
As always, the best barometer for real/fake is to wait for Apple to issue a cease & desist. If they do, it means that it’s real. If not, fake.
There is no expresscard slot on the sub….
But there is a dodgy white shiny bit just whewre it should be.
I say fake, but i’d buy one if it’s real.