The authentic iPod ‘prototype’ used to be an Apple originate to pause leaks
It’s onerous to factor in that the prototype for the customary iPod is one thing that that you just would possibly possibly possibly also’t even match into your pocket. Grief, a software program pattern personnel for macOS and iOS, dredged up the prototype for the customary iPod — one thing that Apple seemingly by no technique wished to glance any other time — in honor of the iPod’s 20th anniversary (via 9to5Mac).
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Checklist by Grief
As comical because it’d be if Apple used to be if truth be told searching for to invent the iPod glance fancy a failed are trying at a pocket-sized DVD player, that’s (sadly) no longer the case. A tweet from Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod, confirms that the prototype used to be designed to pause the genuine iPod originate from getting leaked earlier than its birth.
Here is a P68/Dulcimer iPod prototype we (in a transient time) made sooner than the correct originate element originate used to be ready. Didn’t desire it glance fancy an iPod for confidentiality – the buttons placement, the dimensions – it used to be mostly air internal – and the wheel labored (poorly) https://t.co/qeNMHMmVsc
— Tony Fadell (@tfadell) October 23, 2021
The yellow, brick-fancy software program is dated September third, 2001, nearly two months sooner than the iPod’s accurate liberate date on October 23rd. The prototype is quite a lot of times higher than the iPod we all know and fancy and has a scroll wheel in its high-left nook, along with a miniature cover cover within the live-factual. Various clunky navigation buttons line the side of the software program.
Apple’s mission to cover its originate would possibly possibly be the reason leisurely the massive amount of region on the internal of the software program. The layout of its internals is closer to the dimensions of the reliable iPod, nevertheless Apple honest correct decided to present it a clunky to find-as a lot as veil its originate secrets, both on the internal and outside.
We’ve viewed diversified Apple prototypes within the previous, nevertheless nothing looks as silly as this. A 2d-technology iPod popped up on eBay in 2017, and the seller wished almost $100,000. Even the iPod Touch prototype looks shut to the performed product. Extra no longer too long ago, a prototype for the by no technique-released VideoPad 2 popped up and is suppose to be auctioned off in November.
The authentic iPod prototype, on the different hand, is certainly indubitably one of a form. It’s a testomony to Apple’s dedication to retaining its originate classified, which used to be critically critical for the birth of its very first iPod.