It looks a lot like what Apple is pushing now, except that the buttons no longer have rounded corners and have vague icons instead of text.
A look at the Apple ‘Skankphone’, built before the original iPhone release
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Re: A look at the Apple ‘Skankphone’, built before the original iPhone release
#12> It’s likely ‘skank’ in the name is a variation of ‘skunkworks’ which was the team working on the device. Right, sure it is. Urban Dictionary is nowhere near the mark then, with widely accepted definitions of the slang term from circa 2004: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Skank Edit: To be clear I read it as being "trashy", "tacky", "ugly". There are numerous definitions, I wouldn't have attributed (n…
This is the comment I was going to make. This is an /extremely/ apologetic spin from Owen Williams, and seems very unlikely to be accurate.
Re: A look at the Apple ‘Skankphone’, built before the original iPhone release
#13This (tangentially) reminds me of the cool stuff they have like the network boot auto diagnostic image they have setup for the genius bar. Which from the look of it the last time i saw it, may still using the old carbon toolkit because. You can update definitions and config files for test routines a lot with no need to change the UI over the top of it, so it makes sense the UI could still be a Carbon 'results app' after all the tests run.
Re: A look at the Apple ‘Skankphone’, built before the original iPhone release
#14[deleted]
Re: A look at the Apple ‘Skankphone’, built before the original iPhone release
#15> It’s likely ‘skank’ in the name is a variation of ‘skunkworks’ which was the team working on the device. Right, sure it is. Urban Dictionary is nowhere near the mark then, with widely accepted definitions of the slang term from circa 2004: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Skank Edit: To be clear I read it as being "trashy", "tacky", "ugly". There are numerous definitions, I wouldn't have attributed (n…
This is the comment I was going to make. This is an /extremely/ apologetic spin from Owen Williams, and seems very unlikely to be accurate.
Sorry. We took a stab in the dark on that one really - I've reworded it as it was an incorrect assumption and shouldn't have been there. Many think 'skank' refers to the unpolished quality of the unfinished device.
Re: A look at the Apple ‘Skankphone’, built before the original iPhone release
#16Anyone know why it got yanked from eBay? are there more of these floating around that might pop up if so what would they go for?
Re: A look at the Apple ‘Skankphone’, built before the original iPhone release
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the comment I was going to make. This is an /extremely/ apologetic spin from Owen Williams, and seems very unlikely to be accurate.
Sorry. We took a stab in the dark on that one really - I've reworded it as it was an incorrect assumption and shouldn't have been there. Many think 'skank' refers to the unpolished quality of the unfinished device.
Here, let me help those under 40.
"That's one skanky UI. There's no way Apple is shipping that!"
Yeah, just substitute with nasty.
Re: A look at the Apple ‘Skankphone’, built before the original iPhone release
#18I think it's incredibly interesting that Apple is one of but a handful of companies that seems to enjoy a steady proliferation and preservation of its past company lore, both in the popular media and amongst technologists. People take a great deal of interest in the historical artifacts this company produces; for an outsider, it really stands out as unusual.
I can only think of a few other companies that manage this feat. Nintendo's history seems to be rather frequently circulated (and I don't follow video gaming blogs, though I do occasionally play their games). Intel, Compaq, and IBM also see historical items published, but it's mostly concerning events that predate the 90's, a time when these companies were either much more visible or had a more prominent role. I've not seen much published about the past two decades of history for any other tech company at the same level as Apple.
The histories of other companies seem to be given a much more technical treatment: hardware schematics, design constraints, sourcing problems, blow-by-blow accounts, etc. That might just be because many of the Apple anecdotes are published as "fluff" for non-technologists; Apple also sees its share of technical history published, too.
Maybe I'm just blind to everything else or I'm biased in a particular way, but it certainly feels like we're telling a particular narrative here. If I were a future historian looking back, this might cloud my perspective. Everything seems to be about Apple. Am I wrong?
Re: A look at the Apple ‘Skankphone’, built before the original iPhone release
#19Anyone know why it got yanked from eBay? are there more of these floating around that might pop up if so what would they go for?
It's back up now! http://www.ebay.com/itm/Very-Rare-iPhone-2G-Prototype-/33133...
Re: A look at the Apple ‘Skankphone’, built before the original iPhone release
#20'Skank' as in 'awful'. More recently known as the 'Factory UI'.
If you see an iOS device running this software, it's almost always a factory escape (something that got boxed up too soon), not a prototype.