'Father of the iPod' Tony Fadell revealed as buyer of Product (RED) Mac Pro, gold EarPods
A series of tweets from noted photographer Kevin Abosch seems to have outed iPod inventor and former Apple executive Tony Fadell as the buyer of a one-of-a-kind Mac Pro and a set of solid gold Apple EarPods at last month's Product (RED) charity auction.
The metallic red Mac Pro, which was estimated to bring in between $40,000 and $60,000, sold for an astounding $977,000, while the EarPods fetched $461,000 at the auction to benefit The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. If Fadell is the buyer, that would bring his outlay at the charity event to nearly $1.5 million.
Of the Mac Pro, Abosch says Fadell is "already trying to hack it." Fadell oversaw Apple's iPod division until 2008, and eventually went on to found connected device company Nest Labs, makers of the Nest Learning Thermostat and Nest Protect intelligent smoke detector.
The bespoke Mac Pro --?the most expensive desktop PC ever sold --?and EarPods were among more than 40 lots created exclusively for the auction by Apple Senior Vice President of Design Jony Ive and fellow industrial design legend Marc Newson.
Other notable sales at the auction included a 1966 bottle of Dom P?rignon housed in a custom red cooler designed by Ive and Newson that went for $93,750; a one-of-a-kind Leica Digital Rangefinder Camera that brought $1,805,000, and "The (RED) Desk," a desk designed to look as though it were machined from a solid block of aluminum, which took $1,685,000 at the hammer.
The metallic red Mac Pro, which was estimated to bring in between $40,000 and $60,000, sold for an astounding $977,000, while the EarPods fetched $461,000 at the auction to benefit The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. If Fadell is the buyer, that would bring his outlay at the charity event to nearly $1.5 million.
Of the Mac Pro, Abosch says Fadell is "already trying to hack it." Fadell oversaw Apple's iPod division until 2008, and eventually went on to found connected device company Nest Labs, makers of the Nest Learning Thermostat and Nest Protect intelligent smoke detector.
The bespoke Mac Pro --?the most expensive desktop PC ever sold --?and EarPods were among more than 40 lots created exclusively for the auction by Apple Senior Vice President of Design Jony Ive and fellow industrial design legend Marc Newson.
Other notable sales at the auction included a 1966 bottle of Dom P?rignon housed in a custom red cooler designed by Ive and Newson that went for $93,750; a one-of-a-kind Leica Digital Rangefinder Camera that brought $1,805,000, and "The (RED) Desk," a desk designed to look as though it were machined from a solid block of aluminum, which took $1,685,000 at the hammer.
Comments
Couldn’t he have just… you know, asked for one?
Anyone who stands in front of said product with a camera present wants to be 'outed'. It's for a good cause, but it also puts his name on the map.
Apple has nothing got to do with the auction or Fadell, really.
He's also notably the first person in public to have received the new Mac Pro.
When will the ordinary ones follow for the other buyers?
Tony is a great guy, Apple is lucky to have him.
Tony is a great guy, Apple is lucky to have him.
Isn't he ex-Apple?
In that case, Apple doesn't have him.
Apple has nothing got to do with the auction or Fadell, really.
Really, so these products are not Apple products designed by Apple employees and bought by former Apple employe? Ok than you are right, Apple doesn't have anything to do with this.
Tony is a great guy and didn't deserve to get booted from Apple the way he did.
Although history is clearly on Scott Forestall's side as far as the decision of what OS to use for the iPhone.
Tony wanted the iPod OS and Scott wanted a slimmed down Mac OS.
Although Scott was right, he didn't play well with others.
Congratuations to Tony on scoring the Mac Pro, well deserved and for a good cause
Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call an Apple fanboy!
Congratulations on your new Mac Pro, Mr. Fadell.
He is no longer with Apple.
Tony co-founded Nest Labs with Matt Rogers.
I don't know the history here, but if this guy is responsible for the iPod, that's cool and all, but hardly qualifies him to be in charge of all Apple hardward engineering. I'm assuming that he was the pre-iPhone/iPod touch guy when the iPod was a very well designed media player and nothing else.
Heck of a tax write-off.
When I say Apple-level simplicity we're talking wifi-bulbs with master-bulb capabilities, adhoc wifi connection for jumping onto your home connection and as soon as the bulb is turned on it appears as a alert on your iDevice as a new bulb being added to the network to which you merely need to enter a short pass code that was on the box to get control of the bulb and Ok it onto your home automation network. As in: Step 1 bulb in socket, switch light on. Step 2 popup appears on your iDevice automatically and your asked for the code on its box to add bulb to network; at which point every device with permission to control the network would be able to turn on and off the bulb or set a schedule. Schedules would be synced across all devices with network permission. So, plug in bulb, enter code, done.
If Apple could get the price down on those bulbs and it was built into iOS with nothing to install I'd seriously consider switching my home to iBulbs. I'm a simplicity fanboy.
Hope he bought the Applecare warranty
Where we're going, we don't need AppleCare! (flies off in DeLorean)