iPhone Started as 'Safari Pad'?
The New York Times' John Markoff reveals that the iPhone began life as a "Safari Pad":
This adds a bit of information to a revealing Wired article which reported that Apple engineers had spent about a year working on a Tablet PC before being redirected to the iPhone project.
When Markoff asked Jobs directly about the possibility of a larger iPod Touch tablet, he said "I can't talk about unannounced products."
Recent rumors have suggested that Apple may be reviving a mini-tablet project with a device 1.5 times the size of the current iPhone/Touch. The rumored Apple device is expected to also incorporate Apple's touch OS X that currently powers the iPhone. Adding to our expectations, Apple executives have described their mobile devices as the first "mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform" with a belief that the new Software Development Kit (SDK) will broaden this platform even more.
Apples multitouch technology began life not as a cellphone, but as a notepad-sized skunkworks project internally dubbed Safari Pad, run by Tim Bucher, then Apples head of Macintosh hardware. To his credit, Mr. Jobs seized on the technology and morphed it into the iPhone.
This adds a bit of information to a revealing Wired article which reported that Apple engineers had spent about a year working on a Tablet PC before being redirected to the iPhone project.
When Markoff asked Jobs directly about the possibility of a larger iPod Touch tablet, he said "I can't talk about unannounced products."
Recent rumors have suggested that Apple may be reviving a mini-tablet project with a device 1.5 times the size of the current iPhone/Touch. The rumored Apple device is expected to also incorporate Apple's touch OS X that currently powers the iPhone. Adding to our expectations, Apple executives have described their mobile devices as the first "mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform" with a belief that the new Software Development Kit (SDK) will broaden this platform even more.
Top Rated Comments
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52 months ago
Is there some speculated price range of the tablet?
Additionally, what is the purpose of the tablet?
Additionally, what is the purpose of the tablet?
52 months ago
Mobile safari pad, eh. It's kind of funny, I'm at a restaurant now posting on my iPod touch. That ability is just awesome.
52 months ago
Apple may be reviving a mini-tablet project with a device 1.5 times the size of the current iPhone/Touch
What, a device Apple users have been begging to be allowed to buy from Apple of a decade? Why would Apple offer something like that? :rolleyes:
52 months ago
O! Are you suggesting the Tablet I've waited a decade for is rumored to arrive?!
52 months ago
O! Are you suggesting the Tablet I've waited a decade for is rumored to arrive?!
They all start out as rumors.
52 months ago
Very interesting, but I don't think we will see a tablet this year at least. Perhaps at next Macworld, and I have a feeling that if we see a tablet like computer, it won't be a tablet, but something radically different yet fimilar enough to be considered a tablet (just like apple does with most of their products :D)
52 months ago
Personally, i think the iphone is a much more ideal product than a tablet used for, well probably what the touch is used for. No wonder Jobs switched them to the iPhone.
52 months ago
What, a device Apple users have been begging to be allowed to buy from Apple of a decade? Why would Apple offer something like that? :rolleyes:
"Allowed"? You make it sound like Apple had the iPhone, multi-touch and all, ready to go in the 90s, but they were too busy rubbing their hands in villainous laughter to rain it down on you.
I'm sure dozens of different mini-computers landed on Steve's desk and were promptly returned because he hated them. Even the current iPhone, great as it is, has many hurdles to jump before it becomes a full-on tablet device.
The ease with which one can photoshop the Apple logo onto the picture of a 6" all-screen device nowadays fools many into thinking that Apple can obviously make such a product easily. It's not just hard to do; it's hard to know just *what* to do.
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