iPhone Started as 'Safari Pad'?
The New York Times' John Markoff reveals that the iPhone began life as a "Safari Pad":
Apples multitouch technology began life not as a cellphone, but as a notepad-sized skunkworks project internally dubbed Safari Pad, run by Tim Bucher, then Apples head of Macintosh hardware. To his credit, Mr. Jobs seized on the technology and morphed it into the iPhone.
This adds a bit of information to a revealing Wired article which reported that Apple engineers had spent about a year working on a Tablet PC before being redirected to the iPhone project.
When Markoff asked Jobs directly about the possibility of a larger iPod Touch tablet, he said "I can't talk about unannounced products."
Recent rumors have suggested that Apple may be reviving a mini-tablet project with a device 1.5 times the size of the current iPhone/Touch. The rumored Apple device is expected to also incorporate Apple's touch OS X that currently powers the iPhone. Adding to our expectations, Apple executives have described their mobile devices as the first "mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform" with a belief that the new Software Development Kit (SDK) will broaden this platform even more.
Popular Stories
Apple is launching five new products on Friday, November 6, following pre-orders that opened last week, including its first touchscreen MacBook Pro models.
The following new products will be available from today:
iPad mini with OLED display and A20 Pro chip
iMac with M6 chip
14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 chip
14-inch MacBook Pro with OLED touchscreen
16-inch MacBook Pro with OLED...
When the iPhone Duo launched, we shared a list of some of the fun apps developers created for the new form factor. Two weeks out, developers are continuing to come up with fresh ideas, so we thought we'd share some of our favorites.
Games
Marbles Unhinged ($2.99) - Marbles Unhinged is a marble maze designed for the Duo. When you fold it, the floor turns into a ramp. If you stand the top...
Apple plans to merge the iPhone's Action button with the Camera Control starting next year, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital."
In a new post on Weibo, the leaker claimed that a single press of the combined button would open the camera, while a long press would trigger the function assigned to the Action button. They explicitly clarified that the dedicated Action button would ...
