Apple Prototypes: 5 Products We Never Saw 169
Michael writes "For every Apple product we see on the shelves, there are dozens that never make it to production. Sometimes, these rare gems surface on the web for us to take a look at, and ponder what might have been. Scouring through the interweb, I've compiled this list of 5 Apple products that only the most hardcore of hardcore MacAddicts have ever stumbled across.
Surprisingly, some of these products, over 10 years old, are still being speculated about in one form or another to this day. Will we see new products based on these old prototypes? It's far more likely that anything resembling the devices listed below have been rebuilt from the ground up, but still, it's fun to look back on the products that didn't make it to the mass market."
The Newton Telephone (Score:3, Informative)
Who needs buttons when you've got a touch-screen anyways?
It could even surf the web, with a little help from a nearby Macintosh.
Other Apple prototypes (Score:2, Informative)
The iCorvair - Apple's first and only attempt at making a car. It was similar to the Volkswagen in that it was to appeal to the same market and had it's engine in back. Unofrtunately, a design flaw in the suspension gave it a tendency to flip over going around corners.
The eLisa - This was an Apple Lisa with a special AI user interface that emulated a psychiatrist. Focus groups found it annoying to be asked probing, personal questions while trying to get things done, so the project was dropped.
The iPod Cathode - So named for it's use of four EL84 vacuum tubes in the circuit that drives the headphones, this iPod variant had a short battery life and there was no way to dissassemble it to service the tubes.
The Mac Maxi - The end all and be all Macintosh. This was a fully partitionable powerhouse mainframe computer that was the size of a dishwasher (mechanical, not Mexican) with EMC disk drives, a built-in Caterpillar diesel UPS, and it's own recirculated glycol cooling system. This was to be the conceptual opposite of the Mac Mini, but the project was scrapped after the prototype tipped over and killed someone.
The Apple 0 - (pronounced Apple-Naught) This precursor to the Apple I featured a 74LS00 chip hammered into a block of wood as the main processor and had two modes of functionality, called "on" and "off". Users could tell when they were in the "on" mode by the glowing of a small grain-of-wheat light bulb.
The iBuzz (Score:2, Informative)
iBuzz Doubles Your iPod Pleasure... [engadget.com]
*grin*
Just 5 of soo many (Score:4, Informative)
First off, the list of 5 is really a 5- more list, there are numerous others listed by the same author on the same website in other articles.
And yes, there are many more items, from the workstations developed with Apollo, the clients with Wang, the Pippin game machine, etc.
Then there's the technologies like Hotsauce, Cyberdog, OpenDoc, and of course Newton, all of which got into demo or even release but never really made it. And of course the first post-Next version of MacOS which was to be interoperable with MS Windows (not the Star Trek Windows-on-Mac but a MS Windows-based MacOS layer).
It's really remarkable the amount of technology Apple has pumped out, and of that how much have proven remarkably prescient. Whenever folks complain about how much attention Apple gets I always point out it is because they truly do innovate & lead the market (their small market share notwithstanding)
Oh, want links to all of the nouns above? Try using your search-engine-of-choice with Apple and whichever it is strikes your fancy - lots of nifty stuff.
Re:The iBuzz (Score:4, Informative)
Proto iMac (Lamp-arm) used articulated neck (Score:5, Informative)
It was the basic iMac lamp you know, but it didn't have a shiny Luxo-like arm. What it did have was fully articulated arm... that is, it moved like snake-light, except that it didn't have tension built in. It was totally fluid and you could move the monitor to just about any angle and direction you wanted.
The trick was, there was a paddle behind the monitor on the right side of the mount - you pulled on it like a flappy-paddle gearshift behind the steering wheel on some new cars. When you did, the arm would go totally limp, with all the weight of the monitor in your hands, and when you released the paddle, the arm went totally stiff - like some kind of magic potion turned the snake-arm into stone.
I don't know what kind of clutch it used to do that, but it was really eerie. One moment, you could pull and push and pretty much move the monitor however you wanted, and the moment you let go - BAM - the round base and the monitor and the arm were magically a one-piece device - rock solid and totally stable.
While quite interesting as a design concept - it was rightly rejected. First of all, it totally ruined the lines of the monitor (bah me if you want, but its true) on the back and made it look like some kind of weird bike/computer thing. Secondly - and most importantly - even if you were warned "Look, the weight is going to go from zero to 15 pounds in a microsecond, so be sure to hold on tight" - you'd still end up pulling the handle, it would crash land on the bottom of the monitor frame like a ton of bricks on the keyboard below. I was warned, and i did it. The break point wasn't at the beginning or the end of the pull - which was about and inch and a half of travel. Unlike a car clutch, which has a smooth and vague transition, this went from on to off like a light - and the problem was that the weight of the monitor also went from zero to everything in your hands that fast as well.
In the end, Apple is the quintessential engineering house.. they start off with the user in mind totally, then they throw out whatever doesn't work, even if it cost a ton of money to develop.. then, they develop and maintain contingencies on the off chance that they'll totally change direction.
That's why they are kicking ass and why their stuff is worth more than they charge for it and why they can't make their shit fast enough.
Apple's been doing this forever ... (Score:4, Informative)
There was the Apple II Ethernet card. (Production ready, Announced, Hyped, Cancelled.)
There was the Apple IIGS / Mac hybrid, which would have allowed an upgrade path for Apple II software owners (e.g. schools) to keep their investment and slowly migrate to the new Mac platform. (Cancelled.)
There was the Apple IIGS "Mark Twain", with hard disk, SCSI, SIMMs. (Production ready, Cancelled.)
There was the "GUS" Apple IIGS software emulator for Mac OS. (Almost complete, Never released.)
Apple makes great stuff. But every generation of Apple users should expect to be screwed in the wrong hole at least once. Obsoleting your latest purchase by switching CPUs for example
SLM
Where are the cable boxes? (Score:3, Informative)
The propable functionality has likely been superceded by the tv shows on ITMS, but that isn't the point.
Re:This is why I like Apple (Score:3, Informative)
The BeBop system worked a bit like a cell phone system except that you could only initiate calls, not receive them. Also you couldn't switch cells while connected to the network. On the other hand it wasn't very expensive and you could get a base to hook up to your ground line so you could use your handset at home as a regular phone.
You could usually spot the areas covered by the BeBop network by the little striped blue and green stickers on the water chutes of the buildings (there are still some leftover). I seem to remember BeBop lasted about 4 or 5 years before it was retired. Despite its numerous limitations it was quite popular at the time. Even the Mac modem sold fairly well with the diehard Mac geeks. AFAIK it was the only wireless modem ever created for that system.
Re:Now it can be told... (Score:4, Informative)
Being a DEC product it probably had something like RSX inside. It will only crash if a device fails. But a good UI is way too much to expect.
Re:This is why I like Apple (Score:5, Informative)
That's very interesting, as Steve Jobs wasn't at the company when Newton was conceived, and killed the division upon returning to Apple in 1997.
PowerBop not a prototype (Score:3, Informative)
The PowerBop was a high-end PowerBook with a MC68030 and a 68882 FPU (a must have at the time!). The system was running at 33Mhz and had active matrix display.
The interesting part was the built-in Wireless Modem. Being fairly large, the modem was replacing the floppy drive (an external floppy drive was included in the package). A small antenna was visible on the right of the laptop.
The PowerBop modem was using a wireless phone network deployed by France Telecom in 1991 called Bi-Bop.
The Bi-Bop service was based on a rather clever and simple idea. France Telecom installed numerous access points in large cities in France. The access points and mobile phones were nothing more than enhanced digital cordless phones.
Using this light infrastructure, France Telecom was in position to be one of the first companies to offer a (relatively) low cost mobile phone service.
The PowerBop was connecting to the service just like a regular Bi-Bop mobile phone. At 14,400 bps, the speed was pretty good especially for a wireless connection.
All of this made the PowerBop a very innovative system. Picture this: sitting outside of french café checking your emails, surfing on BBS and getting faxes! In early 1990's it was the killer feature!
Even better, France Telecom also sold private access points to install in your home. Meaning that your Bi-Bop phone was becoming a regular cordless phone when used at home.
This was also working with the PowerBop. I was surfing at home with a wireless laptop in the early 90s! The ultimate geek toy!
It is interesting to see that 15 years later, there is no unified service offering phone and wireless networking at home and in the street...
Antoine
PS: my first post on Slashdot!
Re:PowerBop not a prototype; I have one (Score:3, Informative)
So with powerbop, you could connect to classic BBSes and do faxes, but mostly all you could do was access the Minitel network, at a premium...
Re:PenLite (Score:3, Informative)
Some other ATG less known projects; hand held mac (think pre-palm) that ran hypercard, done by apple ATG and sony (project names; handimac, smartifacts, pocket crystal) that became general magic. The digital camera done with toshiba (image of this made it into time mag) then sanyo then kodak (project name; papaya). The mobile media device with cd-rom (also ran hypercard) that became kalieda (project sweetpea). Both general magic and kalieda suffered from the anti mac os license position, as both had to recreate the OS and in doing so delayed by years the release.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)