41–50 of 60 posts
If anything a big board like this is one way to ensure it's not easy to steal. The on-board (pun intended) documentation - "Do not connect battery without removing J49", etc - is pretty neat too. Is this something that's fairly standard in the industry?
Why the anonymous source? 10 year old secrets in a rapid-development technology seem like non-secrets, so who's willing to "leak" but not be identifiable at this point? Maybe Apple has strict secrecy rules that are only partially enforced? I don't quite get it.
Apple has an extreme focus on secrecy. Apple probably considers this board their property.
Seeing what looks like a full iPhone attached to it (I know it's just the screen, but the inclusion of a taped-over home button is interesting) gives me kind of a "Thinking quickly, Dave constructed an iPhone using a circuit board, some tape, and an iPhone" vibe.
That's likely a ex post facto hack, as a production iPhone's front piece was likely attached to make this prototyping board more complete. The engineers back then certainly wouldn't have seen the iPhone-shaped screen assembly, they would either use the video out to a regular monitor (sufficient for most hardware testing and kernel development) while the developers responsible for making the touch screen work might ha…
The video out ports were only used for the 30-pin video out, the main display never ran on them (could not run on them).
iPhoneOS kernel developers could hardly care less about the display; everything was done with the serial port and JTAG (I don’t recall whether Ethernet debug was ever supported).
There are a bunch of other errors / misconceptions in the article sadly. These boards were pretty cool & highly functional and it’s sad not to see justice done to them.
Seeing what looks like a full iPhone attached to it (I know it's just the screen, but the inclusion of a taped-over home button is interesting) gives me kind of a "Thinking quickly, Dave constructed an iPhone using a circuit board, some tape, and an iPhone" vibe.
I was also curious about that. In other stories I've read, I've heard it referred to as a big ugly box with a touch screen embedded on top of it, which is what I imagined most people worked on. But this just looks like a normal iPhone with a large breadboard connected.
Most engineers wanted nothing to do with the display units; they were bulky and relatively fragile and desk space is always at a premium.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I realise that this was probably said in an effort to appear worldly in an “I knew the dog before he came to school” sort of way, but it does a good job of illustrating how working with cool tech can sometimes desensitize one to the fact that it is, after all, cool. I bet rocket scientists think rockets are kinda boring too, after a while.
"Very dull content for anyone who has worked on anything related to rockets during the past 20 years. Every manufacturer has similar prototype rockets and there is nothing special in this rocket prototype." :) I can't imagine somebody would say this, but you might be right!
While it was never boring as such, there is no denying being around actual rocket science soon became commonplace and nothing to be particularly excited about.
The notable exception being the actual launches, but the old hands claimed one eventually became quite blasé about those, too.
This is a stretch. Guaranteed that if you are working on just chips then you might be living in just your own silo.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The iPad was actually conceptualized before the desktop workstation was common: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook
The iPad was conceptualized as a thin touch screen no-keyboard slate since at least 1992 in Star Trek TNG [0] [0] https://i1.wp.com/www.techdigest.tv/star-trek-tablet.jpg?res...
https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/did-st...
Very dull content for anyone who has worked on anything related to mobile phone HW during the past 20 years. Every manufacturer has similar prototype boards and there is nothing special in this iPhone prototype.
Very dull comment for anyone who has been on an internet forum during the past 20 years. Every group has similar members who feel the need to make other people feel bad for enjoying something.
Very dull content for anyone who has worked on anything related to mobile phone HW during the past 20 years. Every manufacturer has similar prototype boards and there is nothing special in this iPhone prototype.
Very dull content for anyone who has worked on anything related to mobile phone HW during the past 20 years. Every manufacturer has similar prototype boards and there is nothing special in this iPhone prototype.
I realise that this was probably said in an effort to appear worldly in an “I knew the dog before he came to school” sort of way, but it does a good job of illustrating how working with cool tech can sometimes desensitize one to the fact that it is, after all, cool. I bet rocket scientists think rockets are kinda boring too, after a while.
It may only interest some iPhone/Apple fanboys.