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It's the thickest white thing I've seen since showering earlier this morning. :D

But seriously, thank goodness Apple strives for thinner, sleeker.
 
Proof that Apple's innovation of the modern Tablet

i would love to know what samsung where doing between 2002-2004 when ive was exploring the vision that would take Tablets to a new height.

let me guess, samsung already developed the Tablet and Apple copied :D,
 
Now show me the Samsung Tab or google Nexus Tab mockups from 2002 please? Android fanboiis? Kindly please?
 
Looks like a very simplified iBook with an LCD screen instead of a keyboard and trackpad. I wonder if it was running a G3 chip and some funky touch-friendly version of OS X (not the OS X underpinnings we know now as iOS)? Something like that would be very cool to look at.

Also, pretty sure that's the bezel everyone wanted from the start, but again, to me it looks too small to not have your thumbs interfere when holding onto the edges.

One last thing... were the photos of the device propped up by those little ketchup cups you see at restaurants?? :p
 
I really really would like to know what was Steve Job's first reaction holding it in his hands...

I can guess: "This is ****!!! It's too god damned thick! Am I supposed to use this to look up stuff, or beat the hell out of someone!?!? This is ****! WRONG! I thought you guys could come up with something a whole lot better than this piece of crap! It's gotta be THINNER!!! THINNER!!! Cut the weight! And looking at the operations of this, we need something for people to interact with. There has to be a, a button. Just ONE though. Keep it SIMPLE! Simple and THIN!"
 
I can guess: "This is ****!!! It's too god damned thick! Am I supposed to use this to look up stuff, or beat the hell out of someone!?!? This is ****! WRONG! I thought you guys could come up with something a whole lot better than this piece of crap! It's gotta be THINNER!!! THINNER!!! Cut the weight! And looking at the operations of this, we need something for people to interact with. There has to be a, a button. Just ONE though. Keep it SIMPLE! Simple and THIN!"

This is wrong because SJ didn't even want one button.
 
Gosh if that's from 10 years ago imagine what they have in their R&D lab right now! *** wishing I worked for Apple R&D ***
 
This is wrong because SJ didn't even want one button.

Not true! He wanted it 'simple', not uncontrollable. He also had a thing about finality, hence no 'off button'... There had to be a way to stop things happening and get back to the 'home screen'. I'm sure he had a fit with that iPod (was it the Photo iPod) that had the four buttons AND the center button too?

The 'Home Button' was genius. It flew in the face of all of the other ways that a device of its kind could be manufactured. Look at the first Kindle for how brain dead the design *could* have been...
 
No surprise that they had prototypes that early. I mean I'm sure Steve Jobs said that they were going to enter the tablet market, but then decided to hold off and enter the phone market first instead. I at least remember reading something along those lines.

And Apple R&D was working on a lot of products that never see the light of day. This 'tablet' idea could have been a 'thought experiment' at the time of inception that caught the eye of Steve and started him and others thinking 'what if...'

I had read somewhere that Apple does a whole lot of research and prototype design for different devices and different markets. I had even heard that Apple was working, at one time, on a car stereo head unit with built-in iPod capabilities. Something involving wireless synching and downloading, and potentially using a satellite link for live news and other content delivery. I think that would be too cool and dominate the market, but apparently no one at Apple was interested in fighting the entrenched car audio market.

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"What are tablets good for besides surfing the Web in the bathroom?" - Jobs to staff 2003

Hey, if it works...:D
 
The guy standing with tablet resembles a pic from an old patent

https://www.macrumors.com/2008/05/23/tablet-mac-coming-in-fall-2008/

Yep, that's the 2005 US Design Patent 5040889 that Apple uses when they sue Samsung.

(Apple's lawyers don't use the far more specific actual iPad design patent, with its Home button, etc.)

"What are tablets good for besides surfing the Web in the bathroom?" - Jobs to staff 2003

At least we know what Jobs did with the early prototypes :)

Btw, at All Things Digital 2003 he also said:

"There are no plans to make a tablet. It turns out people want keyboards. We look at the (idea of a) tablet, and we think it is going to fail.”

That's probably why he asked for his engineers to come up with a decent onscreen keyboard, which they apparently did in the latter half of 2005, and that helped lead them to the choice of using a multi-touch capacitive design for the iPhone.

(A lot of this is a natural design flow once a company gets into touchscreens. For example, I was creating capacitive onscreen keyboards back in the early 1990s for casino systems. Casinos have almost unlimited cash for R&D when they wish.)
 
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even from those days standard the device looks stunning, laptops were that heavy during those days and this device could have easily won popularity even back then too but age of internet has made ipad what it is today, thanks apple :apple: you!
 
Looks like a very simplified iBook with an LCD screen instead of a keyboard and trackpad. I wonder if it was running a G3 chip and some funky touch-friendly version of OS X (not the OS X underpinnings we know now as iOS)? Something like that would be very cool to look at.

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One last thing... were the photos of the device propped up by those little ketchup cups you see at restaurants?? :p

I think that'd be way too awesome to play with.... just to see what someone was thinking of way back then. I'd put my bets on a g3, since it's got the white enclosure like the late iBook G3s received.. or the iBook g4...

I hope those units are in some Apple hall of fame or Ive's private collection... :)

...and I was wondering the same thing... looks like ketchup cups :D .. back then the money was going into the design team... materials not necessary were out of the budget ;)
 
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