Apple collaborating with Amazon, Google, and Cingular on new iReader?
UPDATE: some people didn’t get that this entire post was an April Fools joke. Sorry for being too realistic.
I was going to not blog until Monday, but I saw something today that just has to be blogged about. Seriously, on Monday I’ll be on CNN with Kathy Sierra and Chris Locke talking about this week’s events. I spoke against more rules or other infringments on our freedom of speech. No matter how vile or disgusting that speech is. That said, I reserve my right to take a week off to point out the rotten strawberries sitting on our meme shelf.
Back to what I saw: today we were eating at Sam’s Chowder House in Half Moon Bay when I saw someone down on the beach using a device I didn’t recognize. Being a geek I quickly ran down to the beach to see what it was. Turns out he was an Apple executive (he asked me not to name him) and tried to hide the device when I came near, but I eventually talked him into showing it off to me.
Apple, he told me, is looking to bring out an iPhone family of devices that’ll extend your iPhone into new usage patterns. The device that he was carrying around was built by a long-rumored Tablet team inside Apple. The executive also had an early iPhone production sample — we’ll talk about that later and how it works with this new device.
Remember the Sony Reader? Well, it’s sorta like that. It uses a similar screen. Why? Cause Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ives found that they couldn’t comfortably use their iPhones in bright sunlight. Especially to read long portions of text. Since Jobs is an avid book reader, and Ives reads a ton of RSS feeds (the executive says he brags that he reads as many feeds as Scoble) they were looking for a new device that’d make it possible to read, while using the wireless features of the iPhone.
Anyway the device looked just like the Sony Reader, except it was white. It also was slightly longer than a Sony Reader cause it’s has a keyboard, Blackberry style, at the bottom of the device. It also has a red stripe along the side that contains an innovative navigation device so you can click on certain parts of documents, or links in those parts, to visit other pages. That “iStrip” is what makes it possible to read RSS feeds and click on links.
But that’s about where the similarities with the Sony Reader end. The device has nice, large buttons on either side of the screen to go forward and back between pages. It also has a keyboard. And, comes with some really unique software that go way beyond what Sony offers.
First, there are two models. One costs $499 and works wirelessly with an iPhone. The other is $599 and comes with a built-in Cingular wireless modem (and free service for a year).
Then on the device there’s a really nice UI (it’s Apple, remember!) Lets you get quickly to books, feeds, newspapers, magazines.
I only had time to try some feeds and books. The book reader is magical. You can buy any Amazon ebook and have it delivered to the machine in about one minute, thanks to the Bluetooth networking capability with the iPhone. I bought a copy of Long Tail and was reading it in just a little more than 70 seconds. Much easier than going to Borders and picking up a physical copy.
Then I was paging through the book. The screen was bright, sharp (thanks to new font sharpening technology that makes the fonts 30% sharper than similar technology from Microsoft called “ClearType.” He said they found out a new way of filtering visual noise out that makes our eyes perceive the font as sharper.)
He told me that Amazon built the book buying and reading software, together with an Apple team, and you can buy a variety of books instantly using the wireless capabilities. It was easy to use and beautiful. I instantly wanted one to read books on. When you see this device you’ll probably write “paper books are dead.”
Each page doesn’t appear instantly, as it does on an LCD screen. Instead this screen technology actually has really tiny balls that spin over to reveal either black or white (or up to 256 shades of gray — he said a color version is in development but won’t come out until 2008). The advantage to using this kind of screen? It works in bright sunlight, like at the beach. It also takes very little power and never is turned off. Once the device generates an image on the screen it no longer needs any power. He told me he read four books already without charging the battery (more than a dozen hours of constant reading).
The device was totally remarkable. I want one. He told me they probably would ship in July or August “we need some reason for you to come back into an Apple store after you pick up your iPhone in June.”
Oh, I forgot about the feed reader. It’s a unique version of Google’s Reader, built to use the “iStrip” navigation device. It’ll come by default with some feeds, they aren’t sure how many. I saw TechCrunch. LifeHacker. BoingBoing. Digg. Scripting News. I signed in with my name and the device instantly was synched up with feeds I hadn’t yet read either. One other thing I noticed is that there was a “Steve Jobs blog.” The exec grabbed it out of my hands when I was about to read that.
Well, I went back up to Sam’s Chowder House, told everyone about the new device, told Maryam that she’s going to need to wait on the crib purchase, cause I had to have one this summer. Our new baby can sleep on the floor, I figure, our gadget budget is just gonna have to get strained more this summer than I was planning on.
My 13-year-old son Patrick’s reaction? (He’s a total Apple freak). “You had me there dad until you said Steve Jobs was doing a blog. That was really stretching it.”
UPDATE: Happy 10th Anniversary to Dave Winer’s Scripting News (and that’s no April Fools’ joke!)
Oh, and I am not going to post any more April Fools’ stuff to my link blog. There are SOME legitimate news items to send through the system today.
Powered By 
March 31st, 2007 at 4:55 pm
I am so damn excited.
March 31st, 2007 at 4:56 pm
I thought California was behind Indiana? Is it April 1st there already?
March 31st, 2007 at 4:56 pm
So it’ll support Twitter, right?
March 31st, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I hate April Fool’s day. People play the sickest jokes!
:-)
March 31st, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Greg: well, it was an executive leak at Apple. So, take it for what it’s worth.
FixedR6: I almost put the Twitter support in, but I didn’t want you to figure it out TOO fast! :-)
March 31st, 2007 at 4:59 pm
um, april fools a little early there, huh?
March 31st, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Yeah, it really doesn’t work when the date is above the post saying March 31st
March 31st, 2007 at 5:05 pm
peteremcc: a Microsoft committee moved April 1 to today. Read http://www.techcrunch.com for another April 1 joke.
Oh, and it’s April 1st in Australia. So there!
March 31st, 2007 at 5:07 pm
[...] more about the amazing discovery over at Scobleizer Amazon Apple Cingular Google iReader [...]
March 31st, 2007 at 5:08 pm
i love this time of the year ;)
March 31st, 2007 at 5:15 pm
You saw someone using a device that you’d never seen on the beach from a nearby chowder shop? You then interrupt your plans (leaving your family behind in the shop) to track this person down, who happens to also be an Apple executive. Said executive (at a company fanatical about secrecy) lets you play around with the innovative prototype, “buy” content from Amazon which you then also read, and reveals to you details about partner contributions, et cetera. Furthermore, the device sports a keyboard similar to a Blackberry which Steve Jobs mercilessly disparaged during the last Apple keynote.
Hmmmm….
This is so implausible that you should have waited a few hours to post it. That way you could at least claim it as an April Fool’s joke.
March 31st, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Heh. We’ll see how many bloggers take this for news. Who in the big media will really bite?
March 31st, 2007 at 5:17 pm
I’m in New Zealand, and it is (actually was because its 12:16 now) April Fools day here too, but you’ve gotta have April 1st as the post date for it to count!
:)
March 31st, 2007 at 5:19 pm
and the date is?
Took me a while though, maybe halfway down the post. You should have stopped at “Much easier than going to Borders and picking up a physical copy.”
March 31st, 2007 at 5:20 pm
peteremcc: tell that to TechCrunch. He beat me to the April 1 punch.
March 31st, 2007 at 5:21 pm
omigawd! It’s too awesome! Apple leading the way. Again.
March 31st, 2007 at 5:22 pm
o.k. my. little. balloon. deflated.
March 31st, 2007 at 5:27 pm
I will admit you had me for a little while, but again if it had said April 1st at the top I don’t think you would have.
I’ll go tell that to TechCrunch :D
March 31st, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Welcome back. I think “rotten strawberries” was a bit kind and generous for my tastes, but there ya go.
See you and Maryam soon, I hope [I'm in Seattle in May].
March 31st, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Hugh: ever watch a strawberry rot all the way? There’s not much difference between that and feces. :-)
March 31st, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Ok, so you not blogging to support Kathy Sierra is less important than (1) a scoop or (2) an April Fool’s joke.
Yay you.
March 31st, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Glad to see that my trolls came right back.
March 31st, 2007 at 6:26 pm
[...] O sea, el 90% de los anuncios que se hagan en los blogs, probablemente, sean bromitas. Pese a ello, esta noticia de Robert Scoble me hizo saltar de la [...]
March 31st, 2007 at 6:36 pm
this is just mean. Dirty and mean….I still want one damit!
March 31st, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I actually kinda share Sam’s sentiments - you took such a hard stance, yet something frivolous like April fools day is enough to break it?
But of course, what should I have expected? The nature of the blogosphere is to get riled up in the moment then move to the next great thing.
I commend for highlighting the issue and going so long without blogging, I just wish you had broken your silence for something more important.
March 31st, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Steve Jobs with a blog? Come on…
March 31st, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Anonymous: you must have missed that I was Twittering all week long. I’ll come back on Monday with something more interesting.
March 31st, 2007 at 7:06 pm
My Twitter account is here so you can read up: http://twitter.com/scobleizer
March 31st, 2007 at 7:13 pm
[...] the Scoble blog entry is here. Leave it to Scoble to stumble on to the summer’s biggest scoop while hanging out at a [...]
March 31st, 2007 at 7:24 pm
OK So now the game is guess which major news source will report this. “industry sources” report the new Apple…
March 31st, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Greg: if I get sued by Apple you know I got a little too close for comfort. :-)
March 31st, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Without twitter support, how can you even talk about such a lame device? :)
Rex
March 31st, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Nice story, Robert, but no one takes a product to Half Moon Bay to use it in sunlight.
March 31st, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Mike: the sun was out today in Half Moon Bay. It was a glorious day, actually. Some clouds, some sun.
March 31st, 2007 at 8:10 pm
And I thought I would be the first one to cry April Fools. Sigh..
It has been April 1 in India for some 9 hours already :D
March 31st, 2007 at 8:11 pm
[...] looks like April Fools Day will be well celebrated this year. Already Scoble, TechCrunch and Matt Cutts have stepped-up to the plate. Robert Scoble had me until the end. [...]
March 31st, 2007 at 8:32 pm
[...] Scoble’s post on the soon-to-come $499 iReader from Apple is an early April Fool’s joke, but maybe Apple should consider working on [...]
March 31st, 2007 at 8:34 pm
[...] other Apple news today: according to Robert Scoble Apple is working on the iReader, a collaboration of Apple with Amazon, Google, and Cingular. His [...]
March 31st, 2007 at 8:40 pm
[...] Robert Scoble was at Half Moon Bay earlier today and saw somebody holding some interesting tech gadget that he’d never seen before. He went over to talk to him and it turned out to be an Apple executive. [...]
March 31st, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Got me . . . only because of the March 31 dateline. Still, it’s a great dream that oughta come true.
March 31st, 2007 at 8:58 pm
@25, and I third the sentiment. It was noble to take a stand on behalf of Kathy. But you just HAVE to blog to make and April Fools’ Joke.
You’re worse than an alcoholic following off the wagon.
March 31st, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Love the part about “the Sony Reader but with phisical keyboard”.
Robert, You made me jump from the chair.
March 31st, 2007 at 9:08 pm
#36: That’s why my name is on the blog and not yours. I don’t take life TOO seriously.
March 31st, 2007 at 9:09 pm
It’s interesting that the anonymous trolls are the ones who care. Were your wives attacked like mine was?
March 31st, 2007 at 9:25 pm
[...] Technology, Mac, Apple, Technology. trackback A couple of hours ago Robert Scoble posted this article about a new device that he saw an Apple executive testing out at Half Moon Bay, today. It sounds [...]
March 31st, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Great to have you back. This device sounds fantastic!
~Steve
March 31st, 2007 at 9:40 pm
almost had me …. welcome back :)
March 31st, 2007 at 9:43 pm
happy april fools day scoble
March 31st, 2007 at 9:48 pm
[...] the Scoble blog entry is here. Leave it to Scoble to stumble on to the summer’s biggest scoop while hanging out at a [...]
March 31st, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Thanks Scoble.
My phone and emails got lit up.
Since only 32 people got the proto, they narrowed it down to me.
And now I’m fired.
Happy for your little scoop?
March 31st, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Half your readers couldnot see through the joke..Just proves that the blogosphere is filled with pseudo’s who cant make head or Tail of technology
March 31st, 2007 at 11:11 pm
[...] from the Scobleizer: Back to what I saw: today we were eating at Sam’s Chowder House in Half Moon Bay when I saw [...]
March 31st, 2007 at 11:12 pm
I’m not going to blog for a week but I’ll forget that commitment for a silly April fool’s post?
March 31st, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Well, Robert, nice try :)
Arrington’ post almost had me, and Google as usual pulled another one: http://www.google.com/tisp/.
BTW, I thought your JibJab cameo was real cool.
March 31st, 2007 at 11:38 pm
ajcann: I needed some humor (even a sad attempt) after last week. Sorry. I think the point got across well enough.
March 31st, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Lame. Lame, lame, lame. Thanks for once again contributing to the web’s annual degradation into COMPLETE uselessness.
Man, you clearly have no idea how to tell a proper lie.
March 31st, 2007 at 11:54 pm
I am the executive mentioned in the article. Robert totally betrayed my trust, so I won’t ever tell him about the new gadgets we’re getting ready to ship, such as the iOven or the iTenderizer.
And I’m totally telling Steve, Robert. He blogs about you every day. You should read him. It’s Scoble this, Scoble that. But now it’s over.
You’re in our black list now (we call it iList internally). From now on, you can expect lots of spoiled apple crates in the mail every week until we launch this new once-secret product. The Fuji smell awful when they go bad. So how do you like them apples?
By the way, the little thing runs on Intel so it totally runs Vista as well. A bit slow though, and the batteries run out in 30 seconds.
:-)
April 1st, 2007 at 12:00 am
[...] Robert Scoble: Apple collaborating with Amazon, Google, and Cingular on new iReader [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 12:05 am
Fuck you Scoble…
Here I was going “hell yes, somebody is finally going to make a competent e-reader”. Then I look at the damn calendar. Why must you crush my dreams so…
I just want a damn e-reader ;(
April 1st, 2007 at 1:01 am
I have to say, even though this was an amusing post, I am a bit disappointed to see Robert break his “week of blog silence” in support of Kathy Sierra for something as unimportant as an April Fool’s joke.
April 1st, 2007 at 1:02 am
Sounds good to me.
I like the new screen technology, thats very innovative!
April 1st, 2007 at 1:05 am
[...] Apple collaborating with Amazon, Google, and Cingular on new iReader?: [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 2:17 am
[...] Maybe Robert Scoble is a natural at randomly finding people using interesting gadgets at random areas of the SF area, [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 3:07 am
April Fools!! You had me going for minute!
April 1st, 2007 at 3:08 am
[...] Scoble says Apple is doing a reader device. [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 3:40 am
Is this an April Geeks Joke?
April 1st, 2007 at 3:50 am
I’m happy to see you’re back. I really missed your posts. April fool or not.
April 1st, 2007 at 4:03 am
[...] Apple collaborating with Amazon, Google, and Cingular on new iReader? [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 4:17 am
[...] Apple iReader: Scoble announced that Apple will be launching a new gadget to make it remarkably easy for the Web2.0 geeks to stay in touch with their feeds on the go. The hypothetical device was named as an iReader. Who knows may be they might eventually take the lead from Scoble and decide to build one. [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 4:47 am
Big News On April 1st
After Arrington’s acquisition and his ban from the Internet and after Scobles latest discovery there are more and even bigger news.
April 1st, 2007 at 4:54 am
There are more big news:
See my cartoon:
http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/04/big_news_on_apr.html
Bye,
Oliver
April 1st, 2007 at 5:16 am
[...] iReader! Robert Scoble goes on an insanely long rant about Apple’s new product: a portable book reader called iReader! Let’s look at a quote from the [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 5:22 am
The plot thickens. That Kathy poll over at Paranoid Life implies so far that she will prosecute.
April 1st, 2007 at 5:28 am
That’s at http://balloonballoon.blogspot.com
April 1st, 2007 at 5:47 am
Scoble with this one you just made it to the Best 5 April fool jokes of 2005
http://startupmeme.com/2007/04/01/top-5-april-fool-technology-jokes-of-2007/
April 1st, 2007 at 5:51 am
[...] Apr 1st, 2007 by J. Botter I gotta admit it: I completely bought Robert’s story about Apple collaborating with Google and Amazon on a new “iReader”. [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 5:57 am
[...] Scoble enjoys hearty bowl of chowder. Oh yeah, he also outs a new Apple - Amazon - Google - Cingular product, the iReader. [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 6:26 am
Not being an Apple fan I did not catch the little clues. But I was about to become one. If Apple is smart they’ll make this product. After all, you’ve created the demand at no cost to them.
April 1st, 2007 at 6:58 am
After one too many scotches last night I wake up this morning, fire up the RSS feeds and instantly get jolted awake by this post.
You really had me Scoble. Outstanding 4/1 prank :-)
April 1st, 2007 at 7:01 am
While Sam’s is ‘close’ to the beach via the adirondack chairs, seeing a “device” on “someone down on the beach”, would half require a telescope. Plus not likely given the fairly festive New Englandish environs of Sam’s. So yah lost me, first sentence. :)
And with someone on the beach “quickly running” towards you like a crazy person, a better device would be a taser. ;)
April 1st, 2007 at 7:37 am
Hah, good times. I’m assuming everything I read today’s an A1 joke ;-)
And don’t worry about the trolls (I know you’re not, but anyways). I’d do the same thing. There’s nothing wrong with a little fun, and I know Kathy wouldn’t mind either :)
April 1st, 2007 at 7:47 am
Awesome! I heard it was confirmed to run Duke Nukem Forever. ;-)
April 1st, 2007 at 8:18 am
I was right with you up until the “tiny balls” part.
:D
Nice one Scoble!
April 1st, 2007 at 8:57 am
[...] Scobleizer - Apple collaborating with Amazon, Google, and Cingular on new iReader? Apple coming out with multiple iPhone devices? (tags: apple rumormill mobilecomputing iphone) [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 8:57 am
Welcome back. Good post. Critique: I prefer a post of this genre to to hew closer to the line of plausability. This one piled the doo doo higher and higher till it collapsed of its own weight. The detail about Patrick’s reaction was too blatant a tip-off.
April 1st, 2007 at 9:00 am
Since Amazon almost always screws up and releases product information prematurely I’m sure they will have a purchase page for this April Fools iReader by noon today. :-)
You know when you lost me? When you mentioned that you found an Apple Exec on the beach with the device. If this were a true story Steve Jobs would have had a CSI team at every Execs house who had the device so that he could determine who leaked.
April 1st, 2007 at 9:34 am
[...] an important dialogue to have and we are learning and evolving openly. Will see how things go. And Robert Scoble will be on CNN with Kathy Sierra and Chris Locke talking about last week’s events. I hope CNN (or [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 9:51 am
Dave #83: actually the “tiny balls” is one of the most accurate things in this post. That’s precisely how the screen in the Sony Reader works!
April 1st, 2007 at 9:59 am
This is REALLY a cruel joke :( . Please Apple start developing something like this!!!
April 1st, 2007 at 10:05 am
[...] Next year, I hope that I will not be as gullible as this year, and perhaps I will come out with my own AFJ, but until then, I will just be drooling over the thought of a shiny, white, non-glare, easy-in-the-sun, expensive, a… [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 10:16 am
[...] Robert Scoble spies an Apple executive using an iReader, a hardware reader for eBooks. [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 10:17 am
@51. Not necessarily. Just cause folks play along, doesn’t mean they don’t know what’s what. IMHO it’s much more in the spirit of the day to perpetuate a fraud than to proclaim you’re smart enough not to be fooled. I have a longer rant about this on my blog.
April 1st, 2007 at 10:27 am
[...] there’s Robert Scoble’s report on a new tablet device from Apple for reading documents, sort of a Sony Reader on steroids. [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 11:06 am
I am glad to see Apple pushing the envelope into the arena of unnecessary items.. “I’ve got to have this or I will bust” mentality. When business people get together and try to find a cure for cancer or make life easier to deal with your pain, they stick the neck out & their pocketbooks as well.
Leave it to Apple to make an MP3 player keyring into a $400 item.
Maybe the Emperor really does have clothes !
April 1st, 2007 at 1:48 pm
This is an example of why the Internet is so discredited as an accountable source of information. (And, on a side note, some people’s unawareness that the world has more than just one time zone is equally appalling).
This is, also, why paper books will never be dead: as long as the information that keeps being distributed on the Internet keeps being in this tone, I don’t see much competition for printed sources. Gutenberg 4; Tim Berners-Lee, 1.
April 1st, 2007 at 1:54 pm
An iReader? This sounds an awful lot like a Newton MessagePad.
April 1st, 2007 at 2:04 pm
LMAO..oh dear lord, now Scoble posts a couple days early and people are all in a snit because it was an April Fool’s joke?
Yeesh.
Dude, that was brilliant, but I think you shoulda gotten someone to fake a “long range” pic or something.
April 1st, 2007 at 2:08 pm
[...] Scoble chimed in (on a respite from his blogging strike) to talk about a new eReader device from Cingular, Amazon and [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 2:15 pm
[...] Scoble has some…. [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 2:27 pm
damn you scoble… was getting excited there…
no fair.. apple rumor hoax on april fools day
any news on the apple/emi press conference tomorrow announcing non drm EMI music?
April 1st, 2007 at 2:45 pm
This is absolutely good and exciting news. iPhones sound fab-tastic, can’t wait to see it on the market - woo hoo, iPhones, great news.
April 1st, 2007 at 3:23 pm
[...] #3: Rogue Amoeba and Scoble [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Very Good Robert! Quite creative and well written until the very end.
Regarding your resolution to not post, you made it and you break it. We are glad you are back with your writings. But remember that you lost some credibility if you make a similar resolution again in future. A better way would have been pre-plan. I know it is hard but you could have said in your resolution as no more blogging for the rest of the week or no more blogging for the rest of the month (and post it few hour late) or something of that sort. As you always say — it is always better to under promise and over deliver rather than the other way round.
April 1st, 2007 at 3:41 pm
You had me going until you rattled off product pricing, argh SCOBLE!
April 1st, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Thanks Linda, Jodi, et al. for mentioning the Kathy Sierra POLL!
April 1st, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Great to see your words again Robert! I just wish Apple (and all the rest) would come out with something that does everything for like $25,000. We could save some time and maybe get a deal :)
Always,
Phil
April 1st, 2007 at 4:58 pm
[...] Apple collaborating with Amazon, Google, and Cingular on new iReader? I was going to not blog until Monday, but I saw something today that just has to be blogged about. Seriously, on Monday […] [...]
April 1st, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Brother!!! What feeble attempts both this and the Google thing were. Where is George Plimpton and Sid Finch when you need them?
April 1st, 2007 at 8:13 pm
So much for your week-off pledge. Pathetic.
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:22 am
I saw through it when I saw the words “Apple is collaborating.” :-)
April 2nd, 2007 at 7:40 am
[...] ha annunciato che la Apple, in collaborazione con Amazon, Google e Cingular, avrebbe presto lanciato un nuovo [...]
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:57 am
George Plimpton and Sid Finch
Ain’t that the truth…spin a yarn worthy of an Academy, but it’s Sidd, amazing how it took, but 168 mph was pushing all reason. I think the Taco Liberty Bell, Nixon for President, the Left-Handed Whopper, stand out, but then Webnode takes the cake, of course basically the dot.com 1997-2004 era was one April Fools after another.
And who can forget John Dvorak’s ‘Drunk Driving on the Net’ bit, that one took…
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:56 am
I got owned by this. I even told other people and had a philosophical debate about the merits and consequences of such technology.
Chris Carfi just told me it was an April Fool’s joke. But, seriously, I want this product. I’m bummed.
April 2nd, 2007 at 3:00 pm
[...] Fools Day is like trying to tricycle across the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a sad, sad vocation. iReader. Google TiSP. Chris & Ponzi face-swapping. [...]
April 3rd, 2007 at 5:45 am
I don’t believe it. It must be a joke.
April 3rd, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Sorry iReader is a product for a company called syntactica (http://www.syntactica.com).
They have used this name since it’s creation and the domain name since 1994.
Go a head, type http://www.ireader.com and see what returns.
Here we go again Apple using someone elses name for their own needs and apparantly with no consideration.
No it is not hardware, it is software, and pretty decent at what it is designed to do.
It’s a very small company, so I guess big bad APPL could just squash them. Either by acquisition then squash their tech, or sick their man y lawyers after them and make it too costly to challenge.
If you have not used the product, give it a try before you slam it or rant some Apple Zealot thread.
April 3rd, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Catcher: this entire post is an April Fools Joke.
April 7th, 2007 at 5:39 am
Lol, shall I say “owned”?
April 12th, 2007 at 8:07 am
Paper books will never die - well, not until it’s decided we need to ditch ‘em for the sake of the environment..
E-books are great for travelling, less to lug about etc, but you can’t beat the feeling of getting all warm and comfy and turning the pages of a good novel..
April 17th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
[...] 17th, 2007 by Harry Wang I just have to talk about this post from scobleizer, with so many die-hard Apple fans out there, cannot believe it has been left [...]
April 30th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
[...] interface, poor integration with the web, and a high price tag. Blogger Robert Scobleizer tortured us with a report that Apple was releasing the iReader with a near perfect design - only to reveal it [...]
October 13th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Sounds good to me.
I like the new screen technology, thats very innovative!
Joern
November 18th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
[...] and you should go back and read my April Fool’s joke on April 1 of this year. In that joke I predicted a device that almost matches Amazon’s new [...]
January 31st, 2008 at 10:40 am
[...] Apple collaborating with Amazon, Google, and Cingular on new iReader? [...]
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
[...] the Scoble blog entry is here. Leave it to Scoble to stumble on to the summer’s biggest scoop while hanging out at a [...]
May 29th, 2008 at 5:58 am
[...] Scoble’s iReader - I honestly read through the whole post and was very excited! [...]