Court filing reveals Apple's iPad prototype from early 2000s - Page 2

Looks like a Macbook (white, plastic, poly-carbonate maybe?).

 

If it's running an Atom, that would explain the thickness.

 

As for the photo quality, these look like scans of photocopied greyscale printouts.  In 2003, digital camera quality was great.  I still have my Kodak DC4800 3.1MP camera and it took great pictures and I bought it in 2001.

Fixed it for ya...

I think it is an old white MacBook with the keyboard ripped off!

 

 

 

Just one? I thought 3 each or bust.

Simmer down people. My post wasn't about semantics or the definition of the word tablet. I'm well aware that tablets have been around for decades. By calling the TC1000 a mere keyboard-less laptop doesn't negate that's it's technically a tablet. I don't care if it's defined as a tablet or not. My point, again is this:

Someone here insinuated that the TC1000 was basically an iPad years before the Apple tablet hit stores. It wasn't. The iPad is massively different and far more advanced and forward thinking. So I called him on his bullsh*t.

When all is said and done, Microsoft's tablet initiative was a bust. They worked very poorly. They were mostly used in warehouses and hospitals with programs written specially for the stylus which rarely required anything more than a signature, a sentence or two and mostly little boxes you could tap to check off items.

This is why Apple took so long. First, the processing power was too weak for a tablet. Microsoft tablets were really full fledged laptops, with most of them weighing between 3.5 to 6 pounds. Secondly, the battery life was too short. Windows wasn't properly accommodating to a stylus, and even Win 8 still isn't, referring to the Desktop.

 

No, you miss the point of not having expansion slots. The point is to provide a simple to use, straightforward OS that does away with need for desktop-esque file management. The iPad just works. There's no remembering where you saved something, or the OS needing to keep track of where files were moved. And with the advent of the cloud, there is less and less need for local storage.

 

And by "manufacturers" you're primarily talking about Apple, as Android OEMs still continue to add useless ports and slots to pump up the feature spec list.

 

Not once did Apple tried to shoehorn its desktop OS into a released tablet-like product; not the MassagePad, not Newton, not Hi Fi Speaker...
 

 

 

AppleThink is always proven to be correct eventually.

 

Stay Strong!

Steve Jobs was smart not to go too fast with this. Other companies would have taken this design and rushed to market.

Other companies did take their designs and rushed them to market.  Motorola's XOOM and RIM's Playbook, and the stillborn Touchpad all come to mind.

I won't include the countless of chinese iPad knockoffs that couldn't even get a stock image of Android running right.

Is that an early version of the 30 pin connector in the upper photo?

 

 

 

Hmm... "MeniThings"... I seem to recall an animator with a name like that. Are you an animator?

What?

FACT: The Hp TC1000 very much 'predated the iPad' given that the Hp TC1000) Tablet Computer was avaiable for purchase in 2002, and the Apple iPad wasn't even announced until 2010.

You're obviously ignorant as to how modern memory exspansion works in many of these mobile devices given that there's no need for any of what you mentioned, as all files etc. are completely integrated into to device's total file system.
Edited by DaHarder - 7/18/12 at 12:09pm

I'm sure someone will post a picture of their Galaxy Note and proclaim that Samsung was doing this years before Newton. It's that type of forum.

Folk the whole table things is not new even before Newton Apple created a prototype table based on the Powerbook Duo if you remember them., They removed the keyboard and attached the display to where the keyboard and track ball was and it work with a pen, but your finger worked as well just not as smoothly as the pen or touch displays today.

 

It never saw the light of day, it was around for a while before the killed the idea when Newton came out. 

 

As someone commented about how long it take for these to come to market, this is not unusually, I saw prototypes of the trackpad back in 1989 which worked just not real well and I also saw prototypes of the inkjet printers in 1990 it works but was very slow took minutes to print a plane page of text. Company who do not rush technology to market usually are very successful.

 

If you want to be utterly infuriated with Android fanboyism, troll posts and baiting, visit this thread on The Verge:  http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/18/3167346/apple-order-samsung-copy-uk 

I had a Nikon D100 in 2002 for $2000. I think Apple could have afforded one as well. It still takes fabulous 17 MB shots today. Regardless of what that image was shot with, it was either intentionally made grainy of accidentally but it has absolutely nothing to do with any limitation of equipment either film based or digital.

 

Posting up pictures of old Samsung photo frames and HP 'tablets' turned off without showing the operating systems running them does little to either make your point or gain you credibility.

 

And your claim begs the question:

 

If all these companies came up with the idea for an 'iPad' or 'iPhone' first, then why aren't they in the position where they own those markets now like Apple does?

 

The answer, is because these devices were nothing like the 'sum products' that Apple makes, hence you only being able to pick individual features one at a time across the entire range of them.

Edited by GTR - 7/18/12 at 3:52pm

It looks like something that was possible during that era within the permissible tolerance levels of a consumer grade device. What more do you want? There are parts and components today that just weren't available at that time.

I remember a few variants. I never paid that much attention to them, but I felt that laptops of that era were somewhat strained. These weren't very appealing to me. I still lack an ipad simply because I wouldn't use it most of the time. Further software development and better storage and connectivity options would change that for me.

You are so silly. 8 years perfecting it? It's more likely that the technology wasn't there to do it the way they wanted to at the time, and they couldn't afford a flop product (remember they were a much smaller company back then). It looks more like something was put on the back burner rather than perfected for 8 years.

You are equally unimaginative with this statement. It's fully possible that this project was working within the budget they were given. Budget and timeline may not have allowed for a full rewrite, or they may not have been confident that they could get developers on board. It's far less likely that they simply had a lack of forward thinking at an engineering level (they had access plenty of amazing programmers and engineers). Some of you are filled with too much hatred and too little independent thought.

This is Knigth Ridder circa 1994 when they envisioned "tablet newspaper" and its many other possible uses, and yes..., it's in rectangular shape, much like paintings, theater screens, televisions and computer monitors that come before it. 

 

 

Videos on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBEtPQDQNcI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCeOM0XwXsY

 

Undoubtedly, public apology is the least Apple can do for the waste of time and money it had created for its patent infringing cases based on some its dubious patents issued by USPTO. I suggest the court to punish Apple lawyers by making them sit underneath Apple trees during its harvesting season. Barrages of rotten apples hitting their heads ought to knock some senses out of them.

 

Apple has never been that "popular" among certain people, as I quickly learnt when first using the Internet in 1993.

 

As Apple has come back to rub their face in it, they seem to be getting more and more desperate.

Tablets have existed before any of us were even born

Not necessarily true.

Which one of my reincarnations were you referring to?

The screen captures of Knight Ridder's "The Tablet Newspaper" in 1993. 

 

 

 

 

 

Youtube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBEtPQDQNcI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCeOM0XwXsY

 

Well, it has rectangular shape, much like paintings, theater screens, televisions and computer monitors that precede it.

Edited by mcrs - 7/19/12 at 9:22am

I don't contest that there were many models of TabletPCs made, but they failed to grow outside of a niche, in large part because of the baggage and assumptions made by the OS provider. The hardware didn't help much either.

Thanks to you et al. you've made it crystal clear that despite prices below the iPad and many models to choose from that vendors were so inept in making a tablet that it wasn't until Apple came along and showed them how to do it right that it became a successful market.

Did you really think Apple didn't and doesn't have all sorts of various products in labs? The difference is a smart company doesn't just launch a half-assed product that isn't read for the market just because they have some basic form and functionality in place. I bet you place chess by bringing out queen ASAP. Care to play me in chess?

I don't see it so much as assumptions by the OS provider. It looked more like they did what they could with whatever R&D/project budget. No one was really pushing this into a mainstream product class of its own.