Is the original poster sure the extra size wasn't to accommodate a 2.5" or 3.5" for testing purposes. There doesn't appear to be a physical HDD. In the 2nd prototype picture (not much for scale) it looks like a board with control logic, and maybe the decoder IC, and MCU, then a connection to a battery and lcd screen with it's controller circuit. I don't see an HDD, and solid state drives with capacity corresponding to the original ipod weren't on the market yet.
A Prototype Original iPod
41–50 of 140 posts
Re: A Prototype Original iPod
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
But why? Why silo
So the hardware guys can't leak the software, and the software guys can't leak the hardware.
Funny thing is, Apple claims that they need to integrate everything from hardware to software in order to obtain the best possible user experience.
This shows that this is complete nonsense.
We could break up Apple into a hardware and software company and little would change in this respect.
Re: A Prototype Original iPod
#43Hard to believe it has been 20 years. When talking about the impact of the original iPod on the last two decades of Apple's extraordinary success, I like to jump back to this forum thread from October 23rd 2001 (it is always easy to find because it is thread number 500!) and see the reactions from the time: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.5...
My favorite remains Slashdot's Editor-in-Chief CmdrTaco's "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." (shared with <3, it really shows how us geeks had/have no sense of the popularity of a tech product)
The firewire connection was lame.
And everyone agreed. If you look at the sales graph for the ipod it is basically a trickle until it suddenly explodes upwards.
Why the explosion? USB adaptor connection allowong it to be used on normal Windows machines.
Re: A Prototype Original iPod
#44Hard to believe it has been 20 years. When talking about the impact of the original iPod on the last two decades of Apple's extraordinary success, I like to jump back to this forum thread from October 23rd 2001 (it is always easy to find because it is thread number 500!) and see the reactions from the time: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.5...
It became so popular, especially after it was officially available on Windows in 2003. And it remained THE thing until the iPhone really exploded when unleashed from AT&T around 2011. It’s heyday was only about 8 years but it had such a MASSIVE effect on the technology and music industries. Has any other product been so important but only been around for a relatively short amount of time?
Daguerreotypes were only used for a brief period in 1840s and 1850s but had huge impact on development of photography.
Edit: check out the video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbbH77rYaa8
Re: A Prototype Original iPod
#45Was this used to effectively silo developers from each other? Ie, don’t let the hardware team see the real software UI, and don’t let the software team see the real hardware UI. It looks too ridiculous to be real, I suspect it was ugly by design. Apple did this on the iPhone design, the ugly software UI was called “skankphone”.
It's so cool to see these pictures. It does seem to match David Shayer's description:
So they make what Apple calls a stealth case, which is just a big plastic box. So our stealth case was so ugly. It looked like they went into an old Russian medical equipment leftover warehouse and just took some plastic boxes, and stuck it in. It was horrible. They said basically, “ You’re writing the file system for this thing. You don’t need to know what’s on the disc. Just make it work.”
Re: A Prototype Original iPod
#46Hard to believe it has been 20 years. When talking about the impact of the original iPod on the last two decades of Apple's extraordinary success, I like to jump back to this forum thread from October 23rd 2001 (it is always easy to find because it is thread number 500!) and see the reactions from the time: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.5...
My favorite remains Slashdot's Editor-in-Chief CmdrTaco's "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." (shared with <3, it really shows how us geeks had/have no sense of the popularity of a tech product)
This was quoted and linked in Panic's article, for what it's worth.
Re: A Prototype Original iPod
#47Hard to believe it has been 20 years. When talking about the impact of the original iPod on the last two decades of Apple's extraordinary success, I like to jump back to this forum thread from October 23rd 2001 (it is always easy to find because it is thread number 500!) and see the reactions from the time: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.5...
My favorite remains Slashdot's Editor-in-Chief CmdrTaco's "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." (shared with <3, it really shows how us geeks had/have no sense of the popularity of a tech product)
The one thing I had always wanted my ipod to do was stream, so I def agree with the lack of wireless being lame. Just because the greater majority of users felt it was okay and made it the most popular music device doesn't mean it wasn't lame to not have it.
Re: A Prototype Original iPod
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the hardware guys can't leak the software, and the software guys can't leak the hardware.
Funny thing is, Apple claims that they need to integrate everything from hardware to software in order to obtain the best possible user experience. This shows that this is complete nonsense. We could break up Apple into a hardware and software company and little would change in this respect.
> This shows that this is complete nonsense.
Uh, what? This makes no sense. It's not like the entire hardware and software teams were totally firewalled. Obviously higher ups and managers were in both circles and coordinated the development of both.
Re: A Prototype Original iPod
#49Re: A Prototype Original iPod
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the hardware guys can't leak the software, and the software guys can't leak the hardware.
Funny thing is, Apple claims that they need to integrate everything from hardware to software in order to obtain the best possible user experience. This shows that this is complete nonsense. We could break up Apple into a hardware and software company and little would change in this respect.
> This shows that this is complete nonsense.
That is…not at all what this shows. Just because software engineers writing a file system don’t know what the final industrial design is going to be like doesn’t mean there aren’t people fully responsible for end user experience.