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Surfing on the Bus (11/23/98)
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If you've ever desperately needed to check your email while you're on the bus, you might want to consider a less stressful career choice. Nevertheless, it happens-- situations arise in which Internet access would be incredibly helpful, but circumstances prevent you from getting online. The way we see it, you can either 1) petition your city government to add working phone jacks inside every municipal bus, or 2) investigate wireless net access options. And if you're so busy that you're really thinking about answering your email on the bus, you probably don't have time for the former option.
So isn't it interesting that Apple's now rumored to be adding wireless Internet capabilities to next year's consumer portable system, code-named P1? According to Mac OS Rumors, P1 may include a "standard analog cellular connection" or Apple may provide an "Apple-cobranded cellular phone" that can provide a wireless Internet connection via the P1's infrared port. Either way, the upshot is you'll be able to check your stock portfolio while grabbing lunch at the local Wendy's. Take the rumor with a big grain of salt, though, because if all the rumors about P1 were true (DVD-ROM drive capable of playing movies to the LCD screen or to a TV set, pressure-sensitive screen allowing handwriting input, etc.), it would cost more than today's high-end PowerBooks-- and Apple wants to keep the price point near $1000.
Probably what we find strangest about these latest rumors is the prospect that a "mover and shaker" technology like wireless Internet access would be added to a consumer product before it makes it into the professional line. Granted, there are going to plenty of people using the P1 for professional purposes (ourselves included), but if the thing is really aimed at the home crowd, who are they targeting with cellular net access? Internet junkies who want to be able to surf the web for fun while riding the crosstown bus? Not that we're complaining-- that bus ride's pretty dull.
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SceneLink (1172)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 11/23/98 episode: November 23, 1998: Apple quietly unveils a spiffy new plan to sell still more iMacs this holiday season. Meanwhile, their subterranean engineers continue to work on the P1 consumer portable, now rumored to include cellular Internet access, and AOL and Sun eye the tasty morsel known as Netscape...
Other scenes from that episode: 1171: Too Spiffy for Words (11/23/98) You know it happens, and in fact you may have seen it yourself: a customer interested in purchasing a Mac is steered instead towards the Wintel offerings by the store employees. You may have chalked up the whole ugly incident to PC bigotry, and that can certainly factor into the equation-- but it's not the whole story... 1173: Sunscape Online (11/23/98) The hot topic in the tech world is, of course, the ongoing negotiations between AOL, Sun, and Netscape. Apparently AOL and Sun are trying to decide whether or not to buy Netscape; if the deal goes through (for something like $4 billion in stock), AOL would probably run Netcenter and distribute Navigator, while Sun would take over Netscape's server software...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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