Every year or so we get to see some interesting Apple iPhone or iPad prototypes that look nothing like the finalized products. Today we get one more leak of this kind, this time an iPhone developer prototype that resembles the iPad more than the Apple handset.
The device had Ethernet and serial ports, so I guess it belong to an older time. The prototype comes from 2005 and it was obtained by Ars Technica from an unnamed former Apple employee. The prototype iPhone doesn’t look like the usual iPhone, aside from the fact it incorporates a rectangular screen. We’re dealing with a model that measures 5 inch x 7 inch, closer to the iPad Mini, which is 5.3 inch by 7.87 inch.
The device is also two inches thick, which is around the depth of 6 iPad Minis stacked, but that was required in order to include all the ports that the iPhone prototype included. Believe it or not, the OG iPhone design had a USB port, Ethernet and serial. The purpose was that the device would be easy to work with internally. The chip in the prototype is the Samsung made ARM design used on the first iPhone and all of this lines up with what Steve Jobs said in 2010, meaning that Apple worked on the iPad before the iPhone.
