This is really surprising: it seems Apple ‘s ambitions of entering the phone market dated back to the early days of Apple .
Hartmut Esslinger, founder of design firm frog design, designed a touchscreen phone prototype for Apple while he was under contract by the company to work on projects like the Apple IIc.
, you might remember frog design as the company that won an Apple contest intended to create a “consistent design language” for all Apple products.
He [Esslinger] produced forty models of products to demonstrate the concept, and when Jobs saw them he proclaimed, “Yes, this is it!”
[…]
Jobs offered Esslinger a contract on the condition that he move to California. They shook hands and, in Esslinger’s not-so-modest words, “that handshake launched one of the most decisive collaborations in the history of industrial design.”
From what we’ve gathered from the web, the prototype designed by Esslinger:
exclusively more than 20 years later).
had a monochrome touch screen.
came with electronic check payment.
didn’t like the stylus?), this phone remained a prototype and eventually found place in a museum.
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