Unusual iPhone; possible engineering sample OS?

[infernojericho]

i managed to get myself an iPhone, long story short when I powered on the phone I am looking at a very unusual screen. I can't seem to find ANY info on it.

I have opened the phone and can confirm the motherboard is indeed original from Apple.

Any ideas?

 

[Applejuiced]

Looks like you bought a fake iphone.

 

[Paddle1]

You have Switchboard.app, it is a real iPhone.

 

[infernojericho]

I have thought of that at first, but when I opened it up and looked at the motherboard closely, the connectors all match with the original motherboard, the craftsmanship of the motherboard also convinced me its an original apple motherboard.

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Is there any way I can load iOS on the phone? I tried to restore iOS back to the phone, but it just won't install. I'm pulling my hairs out on trying to figure it out.

Any pros here can shed some light on what I'm dealing with here?

 

[Paddle1]

This is a page I found about it: https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/SwitchBoard.app

It doesn't seem like you can uninstall it but it is something rare so it may have a higher resale value.

 

[iBlazed]

Where did you get this thing?

 

[dilap]

Does iTunes recognise it? And is it still under warranty?

 

[aPple nErd]

Why would you want to get rid of switchboard?!?!

 

[XTheLancerX]

I'm surprised this is actually a thing made by Apple. Those icons all look shady and cheap as hell. Are you guys sure that's a real thing?

 

[adamhenry]

I'm surprised this is actually a thing made by Apple. Those icons all look shady and cheap as hell. Are you guys sure that's a real thing?

Did you look at the link in post #5?

 

[ardchoille50]

It would appear that this iPhone was somehow excluded from the final stage of testing documented in the link from post #5 and found its way into the public sector prior to the testing utilities being removed.

 

[Applejuiced]

Its rare and cool as far as being a prototype or something build just for testing purposes. But I think the OP would like to have a normal functioning iphone instead.

 

[XTheLancerX]

Did you look at the link in post #5?

Yes I did. I'm surprised it's genuine Apple material because those are some pretty interesting icons lol.

 

[Cergman]

Yes I did. I'm surprised it's genuine Apple material because those are some pretty interesting icons lol.

Apple internal software always has really interesting assets. I got a copy of PurpleSNIFF last night, and this waiting music played while reading the device:
http://cl.ly/2z2K0G023X3F

 

[kdarling]

I'm surprised this is actually a thing made by Apple. Those icons all look shady and cheap as hell. Are you guys sure that's a real thing?

Ever seen the iPhone UI that hardware engineers used during development?





For secrecy, hardware developers were not allowed to see the real UI, just as UI developers were not allowed to see the actual hardware. IIRC, less than 15 people in the entire company had ever seen both together before its public debut. So much for tight software and hardware integration.