The Onion creates MacBook Wheel parody
There's a great history of Apple parodies in pop culture, and the latest one from The Onion is particularly funny. The fictional "MacBook Wheel" replaces the traditional keyboard with a large, touch-sensitive scroll wheel. As the Apple representative demonstrates, typing "...couldn't be simpler." Just use the wheel to scroll from letter to letter via an on-screen keyboard, pressing the center button to make a selection. Easy, right?You've got to admire the effort that the folks at The Onion put into this, including the posters and set at the Apple "booth," the employee's uniform and the sweet video of the Wheel in action. They've also nailed Apple's typical release schedule, saying that "...The MacBook Wheel won't hit the shelves for another three to fifteen months." Good job, Onion! We noted the vid on Twitter last night but thought you all deserved a look.
Click below to watch the video.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Keith said 11:10AM on 1-06-2009
I actually kind of liked the circular "dock" like feature on the screen....looks familiar....
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Iest said 11:14AM on 1-06-2009
I can't believe how much detail they've put into this parody...
Excellent. Just excellent.
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Nic said 11:20AM on 1-06-2009
Its the last comment about the business world that make me send coffee all over the screen :-)
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jonathan ober said 11:31AM on 1-06-2009
wow...that took effort and energy beyond funny parodies. thank you tuaw and the onion for making my time while waiting for real news to happen worth the while.
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this message was not written on an Apple Wheel.
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jonathan ober said 11:36AM on 1-06-2009
also, the sentence auto filler. funny read.
the aardvark admitted its fault
the aardvark admitted it was wrong
the aardvark asked for an aardvark
the abortion went well
the absinthe arrived by airmail
and the list goes on...
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Ryan said 11:40AM on 1-06-2009
I liked the "I'd buy anything that's shiny and made by Apple" comment ... 'cause it's totally me.
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Barry said 11:44AM on 1-06-2009
The subtle things are what get me- look at the sign by the computer when they announce the price. The 'base' Macbook wheel is $2400 for a whopping 8gig hard drive- 40gig is $9500 :)
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George said 12:00PM on 1-06-2009
Already! My Apple wheel is already obsolete. Damn!
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Izzy said 12:18PM on 1-06-2009
That was great. I love The Onion and I'm sure this wasn't a cheap parody compared to most.
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Steven said 12:36PM on 1-06-2009
LOL. Very well done. I like the art where they say:' Everything is just a few hundred clicks away'
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boomsilent said 12:52PM on 1-06-2009
WOW. that was awesome, they nailed everything- even the quotes at the bottom saying sjobs thinks keyboards are holding back human progress. ROFL
holding down both sides of the button and clicking the middle? ahahahah
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B² said 1:39PM on 1-06-2009
One small detail of that parody that I think is actually an awesome idea is being able to touch a key and bring up a row of special characters using that key.
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benwulf said 6:16PM on 1-06-2009
it is actually an existing iphone feature. Usefull for accented languages specially
Brandon said 1:49PM on 1-06-2009
I thought this was hilarious. On a different note, I watched this last night and this morning - well before TUAW posted this article. I come to TUAW for good mac-centric information. Why is it though that TUAW seems to be always (or nearly always) late to the game. Engadget, your sister site, posts these things well before you. I'm not complaining, I'm trying to provide some constructive criticism for TUAW's benefit. I'm worried that one of my favorite sites will lose readers to other sites that provide news and information more quickly. If that happens, especially in these troubled times, I expect TUAW will suffer greatly. I don't want this.
Unfortunately, I do not have any idea about your current business model, your business organization, staffing, or resources so I cannot provide any reasonable suggestions for curing this problem. Instead, I want to make sure that you, TUAW, are aware of this problem so that you, having the most information to correct the problem, can do so.
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Bogey said 1:51PM on 1-06-2009
My favorite moment: "Everything is just a few hundred clicks away".
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carl said 4:06PM on 1-06-2009
"...virtually unbreakable unless dropped or hit"
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Camperton said 7:31PM on 1-06-2009
At the rate Apple is going by 2011 this will be a reality.
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scott said 11:50PM on 1-06-2009
this was hilarious...i loved it...and thank you for bring it to me TUAW...
dont listen to that meany head that was putting you down...
some people just live on their computers every min of every day...
oh thats me...and i didnt see that anywhere else...lol
love you TUAW
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NeveKnob said 12:52AM on 1-07-2009
HA! ...anyone read the scrolling text at the bottom? The first three are funny!!
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pete said 7:13PM on 1-11-2009
I'm just a few hundred clicks away from buying this wonderful nightmare machine.
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