Apple’s Early iPod Design Shows It Could’ve Been Nearly As Large As A MacBook
Photo 160780715 © Max421 | Dreamstime.com
The idea of Steve Jobs taking to the stage and cradling a portable MP3 player in his two arms is pretty unthinkable. That, of course, never happened, and everyone was introduced to the iPhone-sized iPod instead.
When the Jony Ive-designed music player hit the market in 2001, it was a revolution. It only had five buttons, as all other functionalities were packed into an innovative scroll wheel. Thanks to its incredible 5GB capacity, users were able to download about 1,000 songs.
It turns out that a compact first-gen iPod wasn’t always something Apple had in mind. In fact, one prototype shared by app developer Panic depicts a model measuring about 12 x 7-inches, almost the size of a MacBook.
Here's something you've never seen before: a prototype original iPod. https://t.co/tcTdb1pEi8 pic.twitter.com/ro9aBZ78xb
— Panic (@panic) October 23, 2021
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Apple’s iPod, Panic shared some photos of an early iPod design from its archives. Despite the differences in appearance, the cake-sized MP3 player was built “barely two months” before the iPod’s official launch, according to the date tagged to its circuitry.
Its innards were also similar to those of the first-gen iPod, surprisingly. If you pried it open, you’d find that the internal circuitry only took up so little room; the rest was just “wasted space,” Panic noted.
Imagine squeezing this mammoth gadget into your pocket.
(More pictures in the post! https://t.co/tcTdb1pEi8)
— Panic (@panic) October 23, 2021
[via Mashable, images via various sources]
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