Apple is famously secretive about their prototype products, but every now and again one somehow manages to slip through the company’s grasp. The most recent stray was an early prototype of the original iPad, built somewhere between 2009 and 2010, that showed up on eBay. The prototype is interesting not only from a collector’s standpoint, but because it features a capability that never made release: Dual docking ports.
Though it has already been sold for a cool $10,200 (starting bid $4,800), the seller was kind enough to post numerous photos and provide a little information about the prototype. It boasts a 16 GB hard drive, a beta version of iOS 3.2, and runs the SwitchBoard software used by Apple to test their products. Unfortunately, the seller was unable to restore the device to complete functionality as the touchscreen was rendered mostly unusable.
Though I’m sure then-CEO Steve Jobs lost some sleep over the issue, it’s easy to see why the dual connectors never made it to production. Though both would be fully functional, having two connectors would probably confuse customers as to which they were supposed to use. This is the same logic that prompted Apple to always have a single mouse button. Also, I can’t imagine Jobs signing off on a device with any amount of redundancy; that would just be inelegant.
What’s interesting, though, is that Apple did decide to prototype the design. If something like this was once inside Cupertino, one wonders what other strange treasures are lurking in Apple’s R&D closet.
(via MacRoumors)
This Monkey Has Gone To Heaven
I love Kickstarter, and this is the first one where I spent a little more than I should have — If you are a Pixies fan, you will get why. I can vividly remember listening to those albums over and over again, spending countless hours discussing the meaning behind Planet of Sound — often visualizing what that world might look like. I can recall countless late night sessions with my friends, discussing the song’s obscure references, and even painstakingly researching their meaning. Much to my delight, a couple of comic book artists are hoping bring Planet of Sound, Velouria, Monkey Gone to Heaven, Here Comes Your Man, Debaser, No. 13 Baby, and Into the White to life. If the donation number is met (and it looks like it will with no problem), the creators hope to premiere Break the Walls in time for San Diego Comicon in July.
The concept for Break the Walls is pretty simple. What story plays in your head when you listen to your favorite Pixies song? I approached some of my fellow comic book creators and asked them to create 4-8 pages stories inspired by their favorite Pixies songs. The song acts as an inspiration, jumping off point, theme or mood for the story. Each story varies in style and genre.
You can probably imagine the terrible lengths each and every single one of your emails must go through to get to its recipient; the little guy traveling through muddy ditches, through dark, isolated forests filled with dangerous wild beasts, killing any and all other rogue emails that cross its path. Just so you can reply to that office memo with a smiley emoticon. Google Green is here to tell us that no emails are harmed in the sending of an email, and have explained the whole process with the above cutesy animation.
Klout, using black magic and some arbitrary formulas, assigns you a number that tells you exactly how important you are in your social networks. Klouchebag is its evil twin from a dark, sarcastic parallel universe. Klouchebag will assign you a number carefully calculated to tell you how much of an “asshat“ you are. Your asshattery, as determined by Klouchebag, is dependant on four things:
- Anger, basically how much you swear
- Retweet Abuse, asking for retweets, retweeting too much, or using old-style retweets
- Social Apps, using social apps
- English Misuse, basically lack of capitalization or using excessive punctuation
Klout, Kloughebag…the real asshats are the ones paying attention.
Though it has long been called a “hobby” project, interest in the Apple TV digital set top box may be ramping up in Cupertino. Apparently Apple has been talking with the movie channel and streaming content provider Epix about bringing their content to Apple’s streaming device. This could be good news for Apple, which has struggled to bring more movies to consumers. It could also mean that the oft-rumored overhaul of the Apple TV could be coming soon.
Back when Google Docs became available, rumor began to spread about a cloud-storage system from the search giant. Since then, there hasn’t been much word on the so-called “Google Drive” until the past few days when official looking screenshots of somethinghave started to leak out. Now, more concrete details are starting to emerge: The service will offer 5GB of online, automatically syncing storage for free, and is believed to be launching next week for both Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.
