Totally Fake But Cool Videos of Apple Tablet Surface

Leander Kahney ()

There’s a pair of great but fake videos making the rounds of the Apple tablet. Two videos posted to YouTube supposedly show the tablet running the iPhone OS on some kind of development hardware. The hardware controls — volume, the home button — are on a separate hardware box wired to a large touchscreen screen. So it’s not the genuine hardware, but something like a breadboard.

It looks great. The device can run multiple Apps simultaneously. App windows are tiled on top of each other and can be moved around on the touchscreen. The App bar runs the full length of the screen at the bottom like the Dock in OS X.

But unfortunately it looks totally fake to me. The up-close, grainy video just seems too constrained. Whoever shot the video doesn’t want to show too much — just enough to tease the viewer. If it were a real spy video it’d be much less Blair Witch.

UPDATE: As reader Gene points out in the comments, it’s interesting because it shows how the tablet might run current iPhone/iPod apps: “Fake, but gives us a good idea for dealing with the fixed size of iPhone apps on a larger screen: basically, every app becomes a dashboard widget. Simple, and apps don’t have to be resized!”

Also, after the jump, screenshots of the same device have been posted to the MacRumors forums. One of the screenshots shows the “About” screen. The device runs OS 3.0 and has a memory capacity of 120GB. The model number is N/A and the serial number: W8922DP91SO.

I ran the serial number through Chipmunk International’s serial number tool, which returns details of the hardware’s specs, manufacture date, the factory it was made in, and so on. This serial number wasn’t found in the database.


Results from Chipmunk International:

aantalip: 0
Serial number: W8922DP91SO
Group1:
Group2:
Generation:
Memory – number of slots: Please tell us how many memory (RAM) slots this machine has.
Factory: W8 (Shanghai China)
Production year: 2009
Production week: 22 (June)
Production number: 15819 (within this week)
Uitbreidingen: Uitbreidingsmogelijkheden van dit apparaat

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About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, News, Rumors |

  • Gray

    You can also see that the screen touches are faked because of the LCD colour distortion whenever he touches it (and presumably moves the window or presses a key with an unseen mouse/keyboard).

    Touchscreens don’t distort the screen colours, only regular LCDs with flexible plastic screens on them do. Apple will make a touchscreen from capacitive glass, if they’re making one at all, that is, and it won’t bend and distort when you touch it.

  • http://www.snubcommunications.com Craig Grannell

    Definite fake, as you say, of someone prodding a movie. It’ll be interesting to see how close it is to the real thing, assuming the real thing actually becomes a real thing.

  • Ben Clark
  • Snehal

    Surely it’s fake. The apps seems to be of screen capture of iphone. Like safari logo is not round as in leopard, but rounded square as in iphone.

  • Gene

    Fake, but gives us a good idea for dealing with the fixed size of iPhone apps on a larger screen: basically, every app becomes a dashboard widget. Simple, and apps don’t have to be resized!

  • Thomas

    You guys commenting on the LCD screen don’t really know what a dev kit is, or how Apple separates the hardware development from the software development, do you? These videos don’t show the actual hardware, but the actual software of the upcoming device.

  • Gray

    So why was he poking the screen, trying to make us think that it was a touch-screen? It would actually have been far more convincing if he’d not touched the hardware at all.

  • http://www.lanza.fr Lanza

    Hmmmm.

    Cocoa Touch. Springboard. Tying virtual keyboard to app that saves the focus problem. If this is fake, there’s a lot of thinking involved.

    Just one thing makes me wonder : I have no use for such a thing. nd that is unusual for an Apple device. My iPhone does it all already.

    How is Apple going to sell this to me ?
    iLife Touch ? Could make the difference. Yes, it must be something like that.

    Sorry, was just thinking…

  • http://www.macnation.org Nitehawk Jarrett

    I hope these videos are not a vision of what’s actually coming. I don’t want a tablet running the iPhone software. I want a tablet running OSX that I can put Photoshop on and use a stylus to actually use as a drawing tablet, sort of like the Wacom tablet. That’s always been my dream of an Apple tablet.