A prototype of an Apple phone has been uncovered and it dates all the way back to 1983. Designer Hartmut Esslinger came up with the design whilst working for Apple on other projects such as the Apple IIc. Wikipedia has it noted that Esslinger was contracted to Apple in a $1,000,000 a year deal.

In 1982 he entered into an exclusive $1,000,000 per year contract with Apple Computer to create a design strategy which transformed Apple from a "Silicon Valley Start-Up" into a global brand. Setting up shop in California for the first time, Esslinger and Frogdesign created the "Snow White design language" which was applied to all Apple product lines from 1984 to 1990, commencing with the Apple IIc and including the Macintosh computer.

Source: iPhoneFreakz via iClarified, Wikipedia

According to the NYT, Apple is rumored to be testing wearable iPod-like devices that fit around your wrist and are controlled not by touch, but with your voice using Siri.

Apple has also experimented with prototype products that could relay information back to the iPhone. These conceptual products could also display information on other Apple devices, like an iPod, which Apple is already encouraging us to wear on our wrists by selling Nanos with watch faces. [...] One idea being discussed is a curved-glass iPod that would wrap around the wrist; people could communicate with the device using Siri, the company’s artificial intelligence software.

Apple previously experimented with a nearly buttonless, voice controlled iPod shuffle but quickly returned to physical controls for the tiny device. Siri, which unlike the older VoiceControl system, currently requires a network connection to properly parse voice queries. Since no iPod other than the iPod touch currently has Wi-Fi, let alone cellular data, that raises the same interesting questions about the future of Siri and the iPod line both.

We've been asking for an iPod nano watch with Bluetooth connectivity for a while now. Perhaps the iPod will work as a tethered link to your iPhone?

Although it may be some time down the road before we actually start to see something like this materialize in Apple's product lines, it's still good to know they're considering ideas like this.

Source: NYTimes Bits

Concept image credit: Yanko Design

San Francisco Police Department have asked to review the surveillance videos from the bar where an iPhone prototype was supposedly left by an Apple employee. Jose Valle, whose family own the Cava 22 bar, was contacted by SFPD with a request to see the footage between the dates of July 21 and 22^nd.

It is unclear what the videos will be able to offer SFPD or why they want them. According to Mr Valle, the bar has six cameras which take still images every three minutes. There are also many areas in the bar with low light conditions; which would not provide images with very much detail. Mr Valle has tried to contact SFPD to let them know the video is available to view but  SFPD has not followed up as of yet.

Lt. Troy Dangerfield, speaking on behalf of SFPD, said that he wasn't aware that investigators had gone to the bar or were looking for the videos. He also confirmed that Apple had not filed a police report so was sure that there was no criminal investigation connected to the missing device.

He concluded that the request by police for the surveillance footage was likely part of the internal review launched this month by department officials into how police assisted Apple in a search of a home on July 24.

Source: Cnet

Business Insider talked with a developer who had early access to an iPad, before it was even announced, and he revealed a intriguing tale of physically chained down devices, hidden behind frames, subject to spot checks.

Apple flew the iPads to the developers destination accompanied by at least one engineer. They had to be kept in a room with no windows. Apple changed the locks on the doors and took the names and social security numbers of the four people who were allowed access to it. The iPads were fixed to the desk with high strength security cabling, similar to the material used for cycle locks.

They had these custom frames built around them so we couldn't even tell what the iPads looked like. We could plug into them so we could code to them and we could touch the screen and play with that, but we couldn't see the form factor. Then they took pictures of the wood grain. If any pictures leaked out, they could trace it back to which desk they came from.

Not really all that surprising to me; you don’t keep a product like an iPad under wraps with very little leaked information, without taking some major precautions. Apple are extremely successful with minimizing product information leaks. We still have no idea what the iPhone 5 will feature, so the system certainly seems to work.

(Now all it needs is a way to lock down all the bars in San Francisco...)

[Business Insider, Image via Creation Security]

The two men accused of theft of an iPhone 4 prototype last year have pleaded not guilty to the charges. The iPhone 4 in question was left in a bar by Apple employee Robert Gray Powell in Redwood City, California. The two men, Brian Hogan (pictured above) and Robert Sage Wallover will face charges of midemeanors rather than felonies.

At an arraignment here this morning, lawyers for Brian Hogan, the man who allegedly found the prototype in a bar after it was left there by an Apple engineer, and Robert Sage Wallower, who is accused of that charge as well as possessing stolen property, entered their pleas before Superior Court Judge Jonathan Karesh.

Gizmodo subsequently bought the iPhone 4 prototype from the two men and the rest as they say is history. No charges were ever filed against Gizmodo however, under California law, any person that finds lost property and is aware who the owner is likely to be and “appropriates such property for his own use”, is guilty of theft. Also any person who knowingly receives property that has been received illegally can face prison for up to one year.

Anyone have strong feelings one way or the other how this one will end up?

[Cnet]

According to CNET, Apple has once again lost an iPhone prototype in a bar, this time Cava2 in San Francisco's Mission district.

Apple electronically traced the phone to a two-floor, single-family home in San Francisco's Bernal Heights neighborhood, according to the source.

When San Francisco police and Apple's investigators visited the house, they spoke with a man in his twenties who acknowledged being at Cava 22 on the night the device went missing. But he denied knowing anything about the phone. The man gave police permission to search the house, and they found nothing, the source said. Before leaving the house, the Apple employees offered the man money for the phone no questions asked, the source said, adding that the man continued to deny he had knowledge of the phone.

The prototype may have been sold on Craigslist for $200 but the details sound sketchy, as does the nature of the prototype itself (iPhone 5?) and what version of iOS it was running.

Last year Apple famously lost or had stolen an iPhone 4 prototype which ended up sold to a gadget blog, touching off an industry wide controversy and almost a year long criminal investigation.

Any bets what happens this time?

[CNET]

A MacRumors forum member going by the handle guigsh posted the above photo(shop?!) in their forums this morning, claiming it was a spy shot of iPhone 5 taken in the office of a French operator. While we've seen spy shots of HP webOS devices under similar circumstances in the past, this one doesn't look much more believable than those [Chinese iClones we've been seeing lately].

A follow-up post from the thread author gives us the following information:

we were able to see it only 2 minutes, pictures forbidden of course, so, we did our best. I just want to share this with the mac community, now trust me or not. Rendez-vous in 1-2 months

No doubt we'll see tons more leaks, and tons more fakes before Steve Jobs holds up the real deal this fall. In the meantime, this one is making the blog rounds so take it for what it's worth -- a very large grain of salt. I'm personally not convinced in the least.

Your turn. Real, fake, or really fake?

MacRumors Forums

Sohu.com published a photo of what appears to be an iPhone prototype running on the China Mobile network. If it isn't fake -- and we take such things with a Great Wall sized grain of salt -- it suggests the iPhone maybe coming to the world's largest carrier sooner rather than later.

The phone appears to run baseband software with version number 06.10.01, which hasn’t been released yet. It also lacks an IMEI number, just like an iPhone 4 prototype we spotted on eBay. Evaluation devices normally have no IMEI number.

Apple would most-likely choose to go with a TD-SCDMA iPhone before getting into 4G territory in China if this is the real deal, but there's really no clear way of telling from the photo. There are, however, noticeable errors seen in the image such as blurred UI elements, incorrect font spacing etc. Look at the resolution of the time on the status bar compared to the 3G indicator as a good example.

So what do you think? Real, fake, or really fake?

[Sohu via 9to5Mac]

Stop us if you've heard this story before, but a sketchily sourced bit of rare Apple kits hits eBay -- say an iPhone 4 prototype similar to the one Gizmodo got their hands on last year -- and people start to bid crazy amounts of money for it... before Apple legal ultimate has it removed from auction. (And no doubt sends post-cog commandos crashing through some skylights, somewhere.)

It's right now at $70K and climbing. No doubt that's for the lulz, with bidders figuring no one will be held accountable when Apple legal has it pulled. So enjoy the spectator sport while it lasts.

Who's selling it and how long it will take Apple to start issuing demand letters we don't know. All we know is that Google probably isn't one of the bidders. The amounts are far too even. No non-linear or squares of negative numbers in the bidding history, far as we can tell...

[@pytey via This is My Next]

Jonathan Geller of BGR scored a look at an internal Apple iPhone prototype, N94, running on T-Mobile's AWS 3G bands.

We have verified that the phone itself is running a test version of Apple’s iOS, much like the one we saw in those videos from Vietnam, and it includes internal Apple test apps like Radar and Apple’s employee directory app. [...] Combined with the fact that it wouldn’t make sense to release an iPhone 4 on T-Mobile at this point in time, we’d wager that Apple is just testing the new T-Mobile-friendly radio with its current iPhone 4 hardware, possibly in preparation for integration in a future device.

The AT&T/GSM iPhone 4 was N90, the Verizon iPhone 4 was N92. With AT&T attempting to buyout T-Mobile and transition the T-Mobile spectrum to LTE, who know what this was, is, or will be. Several Canadian carriers, like Wind, Dave, and Videotron use the same AWS spectrum as T-Mobile but are a relatively tiny target market.

Either way, it's interesting to see more prototypes leaking, and to catch a glimpse at what Apple's working on inside the vaults of Cupertino.

Anyone holding out hope for that T-Mobile iPhone anyway?

[BGR]

MIC Gadget, the folks who brought you the Steve Jobs action figure, have gotten their hands on what might have been a 64GB iPhone 4 prototype leaked from the factories of Foxconn. Whether or not Apple was testing a 64GB iPhone 4 for potential release and whether or not they'll provide a 64GB option for iPhone 5 this summer is unknown.

Would you want it?

[MIC Gadget via 9to5Mac]

Since a couple videos have started floating around on YouTube I figured it was about time I spoke up a little about my brief experience with the HP Slate. I had an opportunity to play with one about 3 months ago. HP apparently has a couple of these prototype devices they ship off to customers to tinker with and get feedback.

Now, my impressions have to be taken with a grain of salt since I am comparing a prototype, non-production device to the iPad, but I think certain truths will remain. For starters, the device is rather bulky, about 2-3 times thicker than the iPad. Once you get past the difference in physical thickness, your hands start to hurt, not because of the weight, but because the thing runs so hot your hands are burning after holding it for a few minutes.

Let's talk features. I was curious to get the camera working. So, I looked for a physical hardware button to take a picture (because just about everyone other than Apple does that). Well, no photo button to be found. I was in the Windows 7 interface and could not find an camera app to launch. So I had to hunt for an alternative. HP has apparently built a custom skin for Windows 7 that gives the device a much more mobile feel with big buttons to launch apps and services. So, I launched that skin and found the camera app. The camera seemed to work well based on the fluorescently lite cubical environment, but hey, what can ya do. I now know why spy cam shots are always blurry and video is shaky.

I did not see the physical keyboard button when I had my time with the device, though I am sure it works fine. I did have the same difficult time scrolling (actually in this video, I don't think he actually got it to scroll, but kept saying how fast it was. No comment there). Overall it was very lethargic and a challenge to use. Speaking of which, when in Windows 7 mode, it is impossible to do anything on screen as it is still using the mouse metaphor and there is a cursor on the screen; you don't get the ease of use or speediness you get with iOS on iPad.

Again, these are my impressions of the prototype from a few months ago. Hardware changes, software changes and who knows what the final product will look like if it ever ships, but HP sure doesn't appear like they are going to let this one go...

Here's one of those videos from the 'net, after the break.

What with that iPhone HD/iPhone 3G showing up on Gizmodo and now two prototype iPod touch devices temporarily showing up on eBay, we'd sure hate to be Apple's prop master right now.

Oh, you didn't hear about the iPod touch (with cameras!) yet?

Someone has put up two semi-working iPod touches WITH cameras and a development version of the iPod OS on Ebay. They are marked with 'DVT-1' and 'DVT-2', 'Apple Development Team' and one is running some sort of 'switchboard' OS window.

They've been pulled of course, which isn't unexpected, and they seem to look like that prototype from last year that got out shortly before the official, camera-free iPod touch G3 debuted in September.

So is this from the same 2009 batch or a new 2010 batch? We're thinking the former, and we're also wondering just who is losing all this secret Apple test gear?

Gallery after the break!

[9to5Mac]

Nearfield.org (via TUAW) brings us the above video, where innocent toys are scanned by an RFID-reading iPhone which then triggers media playback. Why?

This video prototype is basic and intended to open up for discussion and new exploration around the experience of media selection through physical objects. At the moment the interaction is a trigger, but what if the phone doesn’t just react as output but also as input to physical objects? How do we programme and manage our sets of media and applications in these objects?

Sounds good, but we've seen Terminator, the Matrix, and Battlestar Galactica and this is how it always starts. So, we pretty much figured The Powers That Be would be tagging and bagging us via RFID in one dystopian future or another. But going after our toys? Evil.

Still, there must be some use of iPhone and RFID that could be used for the good of humankind?

Prototype as in the early engineering test unit we saw briefly on Ebay and YouTube, we're guessing. Apple had that pulled. Will they be able to pull the firmware now that it's been leaked onto the internet? Probably not, but they'll likely not be able to pull Steve Jobs and his iCommandos off the person who leaked it either...

If it's not a gag, hoax, or other form for silly fun, getting a look at the origins of the iPhone OS could potentially help some developers... and some competitors.

(via Arnold Kim on Twitter)

UPDATED: YouTube pulled the previous video due to a copyright claim by Apple. Engadget is currently providing an alternate video. Get it while it lasts...

ORIGINAL: Dieter and I were just talking about the iPhone prototype up on Ebay, went to check the current price (previously over $2000), and found that it had been yanked off of auction. We're guessing this is in response to a take-down request from Apple, who might claim physical or at least intellectual property rights over the device.

The YouTube video is still up for now, so enjoy it (while it lasts?)