Brian McCullough asks for Internet History Podcast, “Remember this?”
So, three things: a widescreen iPod with touch controls; a revolutionary mobile phone; and a breakthrough Internet communications device. An iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator. An iPod, a phone— are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. This is one device, and we are calling it iPhone. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone. – Steve Jobs, January 9, 2007
“It turns out that almost exactly 9 years before Steve Jobs spoke those words and introduced the world to the iPhone, there was another 3-in-1 device that was introduced to the world, and it just so happened that that device was also known as an iPhone,” McCullough reports. “But the company that brought the ‘first’ iPhone to market, all the way back in 1998, was called InfoGear, not Apple.”
McCullough, “It seems that very early on in the development process, the new all-in one device acquired the name iPhone, complete with the lower-case ‘i’ and upper-case ‘P,’ just as with Apple’s later invention… [Also] ‘We’ve never talked about it,’ Bob Ackerman says, ‘But we actually did a wireless device that was called the iPad. We created a prototype. Never took it to the market, but it was a concept piece that we dubbed our ‘iPad.'”
Much, much more, including photos and Gil Amelio, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Check out that prototype “iPad’s” slide-out keyboard!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward W.” for the heads up.]