More ancient Apple prototypes revealed by court filings this week : What looks like the first, Sony-inspired design prototype of the iPhone 4/4S, along with an iPhone that looks like a giant iPod mini that never saw the light of day.
This is getting fun! After court filings last week revealed decade-old prototype/mockups of an Apple tablet for the very first time, today we're seeing design prototype/mockups for iPhones that date back to 2006, first spotted by the Verge — one phone that looks very much like today's iPhone 4/4S, and another that looks like a giant iPod mini, codenamed P2.
When the iPhone 4 came out, John Gruber noted that it was like a "love letter to Dieter Rams." Turns out, it's just as much a love letter to the Sony aesthetics of old, designed by Apple industrial designer Shin Nishibori. Just take a look at the big fat Sony logo in the design mockups below.
A layout of the "Sony-style" phone
