iPod prototypes declassified

Apple has been working on a large-display multimedia player long before a full-screen smartphone was released. about this in his Twitter said a former employee of the company, Tony Fadell.

Fadell served as senior vice president of Apple’s iPod division. In anticipation of the release of a book about a career in Silicon Valley, he showed several prototypes of the Apple player. Judging by the declassified images, the American company was developing the iPod nano with a large screen back in the mid-2000s.

Apple engineers created several layouts that had a display that occupied the entire surface of the front panel. As such, the company considered ditching the physical buttons. “We explored every possibility – what if the screen was big? What if the wheel was big? What if there were no wheels? — commented on the image specialist.

As a result, Apple decided to abandon the release of a full-screen player. In September 2005, the company announced the first generation of iPod nano, the player received a 1.5-inch display and a physical control wheel. The announcement of the iPhone X, which is the first compact Apple device with a screen that occupies the entire front panel, took place in 2017.

In the summer of 2020, a blogger under the nickname DongleBookPro declassified the iPod Touch prototype. According to the author, the first Apple player with a touch screen could get a glossy surface of the case.