Apple’s original idea of an iPad was a huge device, actually and we’re talking here about a prototype dating from 10 years ago. This device appeared in a recent set of photos that compare it to the iPad 2. The iPad prototype is between 8 and 10 years old and it appeared online yesterday, showing Apple’s vision of the early 2000s.
There were technology limitations at the time, so the resulting slate was bulky, thick, big and actually huge. The iPad prototype pics were revealed during court testimony given by Apple’s design main man Jonathan Ive. The iPad prototype was around one inch thick and it’s compared in the pics here to the very thin iPad 2. Jonathan Ive was deposed in the whole Apple Samsung trial, where he showed a three dimensional mockup of a tablet that Apple produced a decade ago. It’s known as the 035 mockup inside the company.
So, Apple is using its old design to counter Samsung and say that basically any tablet out there copies its design. It’s strange that this prototype/mockup appeared so late and Apple didn’t show it to us in the days of the first iPad, for comparison sake. Could it be a fake? An instrument of deceit? What do you think? Well, we had some inside info back from 2009 when the iPad wasn’t launched yet, but that model wasn’t this one.. which is strange.
