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Before the iPhone, Apple's Stunning Phone From 1983

Several readers pointed out the story of the Apple phone that never was, from 1983. Pictures of the concept phone are impressive, as you'd expect from Hartmut Esslinger, later founder of Frog Design. Even more interesting is that this phone is part of a much larger collection of Apple artifacts curated by Stanford.

152 comments

  1. Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1983 by InterestingFella · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's surprising that Apple was trying stylus-based touch screens back in 1983. The phone seems to be in line with the whole Apple philosophy - thinking about functions and what user wants to do before technical details. This, in my opinion, is why Apple has always been so successful. Unlike Linux, Apple thinks about user first, and then technical details.

    For example, the touch screen in this phone could had provide many useful functions compared to other phones. It's good for taking quick notes (keyboard wouldn't be), and it acts as a great phonebook. The fact that you could use it for taking notes, or viewing older notes, during phone call highlights the way Apple thinks. Always think about what user wants to do.

    If I needed to do business and have a phone on my desktop, this is the kind of phone I would want! They could even make it a bit more modern by adding similar voice recognition like Siri is on iPhone. Then the device could act as your virtual secretary, handling your calendar, contacts and to do lists. In addition, make it do voice recognition during voice calls and provide transcripts for those. This also means you could search thru the conversation, and have a chat log of them. Need to look up the specific details your client said to you? No problem, just tell Siri to find them and it provides nice list of everything that was said, complete with audio and transcript. Then you don't even need to take notes so much.

    This is the reason why I think Apple has been so successful with OSX, iPhone and iPad. They think about user first. They think what user wants to do. Then they fine tune all the details so that it is pleasant experience. UI and good design goes along with this. It's also what Linux is lacking.

    Secondly, and more importantly, there's a growing issue apart from the first one. This has to do with special situation within human culture. You see, from the very beginning ducks have ruled the world. Yes, ducks. Yellow sitting ducks like you have in your bath tub. Microsoft, Apple, Google... all really started and owned by ducks. Steve Jobs was hired to work as a supposed CEO of Apple because the ducks thought humans would not be ready for a duck-run company. So while Steve Jobs spoke words like "amazing", "incredible" and "outstanding" to the human public, all the corporate orders came from the ducks. This is one of the basic misunderstands people have about tech world.

    Overally, Apple has always got people. They do the technical parts good, but they especially finetune user experience and UI. Most other tech companies don't think about this. Open source products almost never think about this. It's why Apple is so successful.

  2. Prior art? by Red+Herring · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder how many iPhone patents this provides prior art against?

    --
    #include "standard_disclaimer.h"
    1. Re:Prior art? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      I wonder how many iPhone patents this provides prior art against?

      Actually, I see an on-screen keyboard there. The on-screen keyboard landscape is littered with patent landmines. 1983 should be old enough that maybe a few of these could be dispatched - at least enough to have an unencumbered option.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    2. Re:Prior art? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Forget that, it provides prior art for touch input of all kinds. (All the stylus does is act as a poking stick for the small screen.)

      Startrek TNG provides all the prior art needed for changeable touch interfaces,Siri (the enterprise's computer,) even though they really didn't exist in the form they appear on TV. Actually Startrek IV provides the reason for Siri at all.

      If you think about it, some of the stuff Apple invented seems eerily similar to the kinds of things that were "easy handwave stage magic." Even (automated) sliding doors and cell phones came out of Startrek hollywood magic.

      But because they don't physically and functionally exist, they're not patentable. This Apple phone was something that probably was too expensive or too difficult to produce in quantities at the time.

  3. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, why do you think Apple is successful and Linux isn't?

  4. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by InterestingFella · · Score: 3, Funny

    Because Apple has always finetuned UI and user experience. Linux has always been about command line and geeky stuff first. However, it's not what users want to use. They don't want to mess with command line settings and tools.

  5. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by InterestingFella · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Or, good god, maybe I'm not shilling for anyone but can see different companies doing different things better than others and just state my honest opinions about them?

  6. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obvious troll is obvious

  7. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Keep telling yourself that, as you cry into your Mountain Dew Code Red while watching your VA Linux stock tank.

  8. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Linux was always servers first, work stations next, desktops last. Apple is the other way around. It's not fair to compare the two.

  9. alternatively by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder how many Nokia/Motorola/HTC/Samsung/Microsoft patents this provides prior art against?

    1. Re:alternatively by Red+Herring · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I wonder how many Nokia/Motorola/HTC/Samsung/Microsoft patents this provides prior art against?

      I'm OK with that too... the sooner everyone realizes that all cell phone patents are "obvious" derivatives of Maxwell Smart's shoe phone, the sooner the lawyers will join the ranks of the unemployed. Flying cars will follow shortly thereafter, I'm told.

      --
      #include "standard_disclaimer.h"
    2. Re:alternatively by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like how the original post for modded funny while this one was insightful. /posting anonymously since 1999 and getting less and less notice. Being old and stubborn about anonymity sucks sometimes.

  10. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by InterestingFella · · Score: 4, Informative

    Linux was always servers first, work stations next, desktops last. Apple is the other way around. It's not fair to compare the two.

    Uh, no. Linux was even created because Linus wanted a free UNIX like desktop. Since the beginning Linux users have touted how this will be the year of Linux on desktop. It has nothing to do with "servers first, desktops last", because Linux users very much have wanted Linux to be number #1 on desktop.

  11. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    He shills for the Ducks

  12. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think he was remarking on the fact that neither have a massive market share, and they both excel in different areas of the market.

    You say "thinking about functions and what user wants to do before technical details [...] is why Apple has always been so successful" and you wouldn't be wrong when you talk about tablets and multimedia devices.
    I could easily say the opposite, "thinking about technical details and functionality before what user wants to do [...] is why Linux has always been so successful", and I wouldn't be wrong if we were talking in the context of servers, high-reliability embedded devices, supercomputers etc.

  13. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by MrEricSir · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Maybe instead of making baseless accusations, you could actually respond to the part of his post that you disagree with?

    As someone who works in the Linux desktop world, I don't see anything in his post that seems off-base or even inflammatory.

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
  14. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You obviously have no idea what Linux actually is.

  15. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Uh, no. Linux was even created because Linus wanted a free UNIX like desktop.

    He wanted something that he could hack on, and the free UNIX at the time was not good enough.

    Since the beginning Linux users have touted how this will be the year of Linux on desktop. It has nothing to do with "servers first, desktops last", because Linux users very much have wanted Linux to be number #1 on desktop.

    This is how I know you are shilling or trolling. It should be obvious to the slashdot crowd that most of the development in Linux is happening on the base of the system and server and DB related tools. Of course, any Linux user wants his desktop experience to be great as well.

  16. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Morty · · Score: 2

    You see, from the very beginning ducks have ruled the world.

    Yes, a lot of folks just read the first part of the comment and the conclusion. But some people do read the entire comment before replying.

  17. Not quite by toadlife · · Score: 1

    Linus Torvalds' original goal was not to make a great server OS. It was to be able to run a unix-like OS on his cheap x86 desktop machine.

    --
    I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
    1. Re:Not quite by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 1

      And Bill Gates' original goal was to sell BASIC for microcomputers. The point being.. so?

    2. Re:Not quite by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      Notice the difference in your claim, and GP's claim.

      "Bill Gates' - - to sell - - "

      "Linus Torvalds' - - - able to run - - "

      So, you grant that Gates is a salesman first, while Torvalds is a hacker, right? I know, the world isn't as I want it to be, but personally, I have almost zero use for a market droid, no matter how rich he might be.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    3. Re:Not quite by InterestingFella · · Score: 2

      That's just ignorance. You're quoting people at different points of life. Linus said that when he was in school and just had released some piece of code for others to tinker with. Bill Gates had already done school and was starting a business.

      You may dislike anyone you want, but at least keep it honest.

    4. Re:Not quite by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1, Troll

      Ignorance. An introspective person might wonder if your own attitude isn't born of ignorance. A person's greed is established long before he graduates from high school, or college, or begins his first business.

      Bill Gates has never "given" anything to the world. Linus gave away an operating system. Gave it away. He has never charged me a dime for using his kernel, his logo, his name - nothing. He has never even asked me for a penny. Bill? What did he ever "give" me, or you?

      Oh, don't bother to tell me about all the "fine work" he is doing now, after he's robbed the world of more billions than he can spend in the rest of his life. NOW, when he's so filthy rich that every bimbo in the world wants to sleep with him, he gives some money to charities. And, what people fail to see there is, he's trying to buy the only immortality that any man can buy. That "Bill and Melissa" foundation will last at least as long as the Carnegie Institute. Immortality, of a sort.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    5. Re:Not quite by mrclisdue · · Score: 1

      +1

      Belated "Bravo" for this post.

      Should be required reading for all.

      cheers,

    6. Re:Not quite by jonbryce · · Score: 1

      And Visual Studio is an important part of what makes Microsoft successful today.

    7. Re:Not quite by Abreu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Bill Gates has never "given" anything to the world.

      Sorry, Gates may be a dick in many ways, but his charitable foundation is quite big.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates_foundation

      --
      No sig for the moment.
    8. Re:Not quite by InterestingFella · · Score: 2

      What did he give me? He actually inspired me a lot when I was kid and reading his book. He had quite interesting stuff to said about technology and how it's going to be in the future. Apart from that, he also gave me QBasic and Visual Basic which were the first programming languages I learned and used. Indirectly, he also influenced countless of things. I remember when I was learning about game programming, AI, 3D with DirectX and other things as 10-11 years old and it was a fascinating subject. I literally spent my summer holidays reading about those. Coding on days, reading in bed and while on travel. And overally, billions of people use the OS he created. I bet you do too.

      You may dislike him, sure. But you can't say he hasn't given anything. He is probably the most influential guy in the history of PC's, either directly or indirectly.

    9. Re:Not quite by Runaway1956 · · Score: 0

      Either you failed to read my post, or you failed to understand it, or you just ignored it. I don't guess it matters much. Have your say.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    10. Re:Not quite by Runaway1956 · · Score: 0

      You are quite young, aren't you? And, like most young Americans (alright, I'll be honest, you're like most Americans, young or old) you are infatuated with the rich.

      Again, Gates didn't "give" you anything. Way back in the day, every DOS came with a basic. All of them. An MSDos without Basic wouldn't have sold any more than a cheap car without axles or wheels would sell.

      Tell ya what - next time you attempt to explain all the good things that Bill has "given" to the world, pick up a dictionary and look up a few words. "Free", "Gratis", "Gift", and more.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    11. Re:Not quite by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      Yes, it's an about-face for us MS-haters!

      I've read some of his articles on humanitarian causes and if he can lobby Congress to do something practical in Africa then all the best, Bill.

    12. Re:Not quite by InterestingFella · · Score: 2

      Funnily, I'm not American, I'm Russian.

    13. Re:Not quite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure he's a philanthropist now, when you have more money than God it's easy to give it all away.
      (all=everything he didn't need in the 1st place, I'm sure him & the family and a few 'as yet' generations will never want and will afford to live lavishly without ever contributing an iota. See also: DuPont, Rothschild, etc).

      What the 'hopefuls'* conveniently ignore is his massive douchebaggery that lead us down the road of entrenching/popularizing/legitimizing proprietary software to the point of extortionist licensing schemes. Forget all the people he chewed up, used/discarded and lives ruined. Bravo, Billy, you fucked us all, got dickish rich and now you're a saint because you did it best!

      No wonder the human race is circling the drain like a semi-buoyant turd.

    14. Re:Not quite by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 0

      I really don't care about your moral interpretations of the motivations of people. I was merely making the point that things change over time.

    15. Re:Not quite by RocketRabbit · · Score: 1

      His foundation is just a way to dodge taxes, and help big pharma and the people who want strict population control.

      Gates' views on population control and his foundation's role in realizing it are all quite clear and public.

    16. Re:Not quite by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (whose name you didn't actually know when you went looking for a citation, I notice) is not a charitable organization, it is a vessel for spreading evil and oppressive IP law across the globe while pretending to do something about Malaria and other diseases which cannot possibly be wiped out without access to more countries than they will gain access to under their terms.

      If you want immunizations from the Gates foundation you will have to grant strong IP protection to pharmaceutical companies. So strong, in fact, that should your people be dying and should you be able to manufacture the drug that will save them yourself, you will find the WTO and the world bank up your ass in a second if you do so instead of paying Big Pharma literally any price they demand for it.

      Meanwhile, the foundation makes many investments in corporations and industries which are killing many of the people they are claiming to try to help. When they were caught doing this they issued a press release saying they would review their investments for ethical content. Then the press release disappeared from their website. Then they issued a new one that said that they would not be reviewing their investments because it involves time and effort. This conclusively proves that in fact they do not give one tenth of one fuck about anyone; not you, not me, not people dying of Malaria. Their goals are entirely commercial and they have suckered not just you, but millions of others.

      What on earth made you think that Bill Gates suddenly was not a willful repeat criminal, essentially a real-life super villain? He's a persian cat and a monocle away from trying to fry people's nuts with fancy cutting equipment.

      If you really wanted to know about the gates foundation, you could ask google. Instead of just searching for their name, which is how you get a bunch of official PR and the crap that the mainstream media has decided to repeat ad infinitum, try prefixing it with "problems with" and see what happens. It's amazing what you can find out when you actually try.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  18. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by toadlife · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Of course, any Linux user wants his desktop experience to be great as well.

    Then why the hell do the vast majority of them put up shit like Gnome?

    --
    I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
  19. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

    Mmmm Peking duck.

  20. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by tragedy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe the creators of Linux (and naturally the various flavours of Unix it comes from) also thought about users, but simply had a different subset of users in mind?

  21. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this supposed to sound completely nonsensical in a satirical way or is this supposed to be serious?

    Do you remember when iPhone first came out? No one could figure out what to do with it. It sold magnificently anyway. I had a friend who got one when it first came out. It was just a very expensive phone with no other uses. At that time no one really cared about doing checking twitter feeds and what not on a phone but that's what iPhone was made for anyway. So, tell me how Apple cares about what users want and that's their design philosophy. They did however succeed in showing what was possible with the state of the art technologies beyond what the unsuspecting mass could imagine doing with a phone. This was done with cool design and some innovative approaches. But please stop throwing out BSes like they only care about what their customers want.

  22. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Macthorpe · · Score: 1

    What?! A person with varying opinions that we can't easily pigeonhole? Fuck, we can't have this - release the hounds!

    --
    "It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
  23. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Macthorpe · · Score: 1

    Freely admit he got me hook line and sinker. I think there must be a certain length of post that makes people think "Sod it, I'll skip to the conclusion". However, it didn't work on my partner because he has to read everything out loud and is quite careful to read every line.

    --
    "It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
  24. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linus said "I never wanted Linux to be some server".

  25. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Talk about yourself not the whole user community, apple products do very little that I want; although i admit when i do use them for nothing I want, it does still look pretty (which is really what apple is about, form over function).

  26. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Dr+Max · · Score: 1

    Hell yeah, they don't listen to what the user wants they tell the user what to want.

    --
    Rocket Surgeon.
  27. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 1

    Oh c'mon -- reading the comments from the oblivious posters is half the fun!

  28. Looks a lot like the 2c by mark-t · · Score: 2

    I can't be the only one who immediately thought of the Apple 2c case when seeing the phone.

    1. Re:Looks a lot like the 2c by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You're right, you're not the only one who thought that. Anyone who actually read the article would think that as well, because it's mentioned in it.

    2. Re:Looks a lot like the 2c by mark-t · · Score: 1

      But this is slashdot. Who actually *reads* the articles?

    3. Re:Looks a lot like the 2c by Scoth · · Score: 1

      There's a reason for that. This was in the era where Apple was working on the Snow White design language and it follows it pretty closely.

    4. Re:Looks a lot like the 2c by antdude · · Score: 1

      Do they read books too? I don't. :P

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  29. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Dr+Max · · Score: 1

    lawyers, money, greed, marketing, loose morals, closed controlled expensive source vs free open source.

    --
    Rocket Surgeon.
  30. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    I wouldn't call them "baseless" with such a thought out post appearing the same minute the article goes live (look ma, no subscription!). Check his comment history and see how he always chimes in in first minutes or even the first minute, especially when he can say something good about MS or bad about Google.

    Compare with previous similar accounts, each dropped when next goes live.

    Offtopic accusations - may be (though "Uh, no. Linux was even created because Linus wanted a free UNIX like desktop. Since the beginning Linux users have touted how this will be the year of Linux on desktop." silliness is probably modded Informative by his alt), but baseless?..

  31. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You miss the point. This isn't a users vs tech specs question.

    It's a cathedral vs. bazaar question.

    The cathedral can pick one priority. The bazaar (by its very nature) cannot.

    The bazaar model (and we could debate the extent to which Linux development really follows that model, but as theoretical ideal it's apt enough) implies a set of cooperating interests each pursuing their own goal. In short, the bazaar model gaurantees that the product will be what the people working on it cared about, which may or may not align with their users.

    Thus we get things like the kded4 process being permanently unstable because the devs wanted the plug-in modules to work a certain way, and one shitty module brings down all the rest. The user doesn't care about the overhead saved by this model. They just care that their desktop becomes periodically unstable in a way that is nearly impossible to debug. Take your pick of other Linux development problems.

    In the cathedral management picks their priorities, and the developers can go defile themselves if they don't like it. That can create the iPad, and it can also create Windows Bob (and the Paper Clip).

    The question is, and always has been, which is better overall? While citing best and worst examples from both camps can be illuminating, it does not make for proof that one is better than the other.

  32. sales were actually lousy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At the original $500/$600 price point, the early adopters snapped it up and then sales slowed. Apple had an "emergency" $200 price drop and rebated (coupons?) previous buyers.

    It sold noticeably better at $400 and when the price dropped to $200 with subsidy the sales really took off. The app store definitely helped too.

  33. So there you go. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Apple invented the telephone. So piss off, Alexander Bell! APPLE4LYFE

    1. Re:So there you go. by swalve · · Score: 1

      They didn't invent it, they just made it *useful*. APPLE4LYFE

  34. Uh....slashdot? by ShooterNeo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Every post here is just random noise about Apple itself, not about the device.

    Was this a working prototype? Did they even have flatpanel displays like that in 1983? What kind of processor would drive the phone? Where the heck would all the internals fit, a 1983 era computer was 10x the volume of this phone "prototype".

    I can't imagine that this device was anything but a non-functional "concept" mockup. I don't think it was feasible to build one of these for at least 10-15 years.

    1. Re:Uh....slashdot? by zskelton · · Score: 1

      Agreed, there are not enough details in the article and it's a prototype. It's just a guess but thinking of the Apple IIC at home, I'm guessing this was not a working model but rather a design idea.

    2. Re:Uh....slashdot? by hackertourist · · Score: 3, Informative

      Where the heck would all the internals fit, a 1983 era computer was 10x the volume of this phone "prototype".

      The 1981 Sinclair ZX Spectrum would fit inside that phone.

    3. Re:Uh....slashdot? by Centurix · · Score: 2

      I expect Apple to announce its new leader to be Sir Clive Sinclair this year. The next product line would be the iC5 followed by white touch screen transistor radios.

      --
      Task Mangler
    4. Re:Uh....slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And white touchscren bikes with rounded rectangular wheels!

    5. Re:Uh....slashdot? by sourcerror · · Score: 1

      The display was probably monochrome LCD, like the one the IBM Simon used.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon

    6. Re:Uh....slashdot? by Belial6 · · Score: 4, Informative

      No way. That device doesn't look any larger than a Commodore Plus/4. It was released in 1984, so it would have had prototypes in 1983. The TSR-80 model 100 had an LCD graphics display in 1983. There is no technical reason that the devices couldn't have been made. While the device is interesting from a retro computer prototype point of view, the device is pretty much in line with the kinds of ideas being tried at the time. It isn't some sign that Apple was decades ahead of the competition.

    7. Re:Uh....slashdot? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Handheld organizers with touch screens existed back in the 1980s, and you could pick them up at the flea market for ten bucks. Small computers existed. The Newton, which used a fairly fancy processor, was introduced in 1987. It should not be hard to believe that this was a working prototype.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re:Uh....slashdot? by nurb432 · · Score: 1

      Pen based touchscreens did exist. Atari had a pen based touch pad selling product for graphics in 84, and around 85 had a prototype PDA.

      I'm sure Apple could have got the hardware together to make it work.

      Now, how practical? That is another question.

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    9. Re:Uh....slashdot? by rjames13 · · Score: 2

      The stylus technology may have come from the Apple Graphics Tablet. The display is a high res (for the period) B/W LCD.

    10. Re:Uh....slashdot? by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      yes they had flat panel displays like that in 1983, though they were not much better than a large calulator lcd with a dot matrix display (think large gameboy screen)

    11. Re:Uh....slashdot? by zskelton · · Score: 1

      Not really, there could be technology to support this in 1983. I wonder if there are any supporting documents to go with the article. A user manual would be good.

    12. Re:Uh....slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It seems to me that Apple visited some ideas 30 years ago and is one of the few companies which have actually managed to go back to them once technology is at the point where it's not only feasible but marketable. So the first time around, they figured all the bits and pieces weren't quite there yet and were smart enough to not put it into production since it would waste money. Then years later it almost seems as if they have people saying, "Hey you know what this reminds me of? Remember that thing from back in '82?... Think we can make it work this time around?"

      I know tech companies have their turnover, but sometimes I wonder if Apple is one of those few that have retained some key people all those years. (Either that or they have some people specifically assigned to archive work in the R&D department.)

    13. Re:Uh....slashdot? by swalve · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure about the display, but the rest of it was possible. The Apple //c was pretty small, and a big part of its volume was the disk drive and keyboard. Then, eliminate the circuitry for all the unnecessary I/O devices, probably reduce the RAM chip count and I think they could have easily fit it in that package.

  35. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's surprising that Apple was trying stylus-based touch screens back in 1983.

    No it isn't. At least in Northern Europe from the late 1970's to the early 1980's, different kind of pointing devices for home computers and computerized home appliances was very fashionable. Including styluses, touch screens (they had metal meshes layered on top of the screen), optical devices that read when the pixel that they where aimed at updated (very popular for shooter games in the mid-1970's, don't know what they are called in English) and digitizer tablets. Apple only had to glance at Europe to find similar devices, made some years prior to this phone.

    Then IBM PC clones and MacIntoshes became popular in the mid 1980's (through sly marketing efforts) and the whole computer market was from a technical and UI point of view brought back ten years and most of the UI technology developed before them would be forgotten, although some of it have been reinvented through the "modern" touch phones/pads.

  36. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by pmontra · · Score: 5, Funny

    I see you've been modded funny but I don't think that it was the aim of your post.

    I think you are comparing apples with oranges. Linux is not a company so it doesn't have the same goals as a company. It started as a geek pet project and it's goal was fun and learning. What it does now is providing a kernel to whoever wants to use it. Anyway, with Linux you probably mean the companies or just the geeks building distributions on the top of the Linux kernel and the GNU software, plus Google with their Linux/Android products. Or you might even mean the desktop environments like Gnome, KDE and many others. But if you compare apples with apples, let's say Apple with Canonical, you see that they are moving more or less in the same way. Canonical is even going through the pain of reinventing the UI because they want to be more user friendly.
    By the way, I installed the Mint desktop on the Ubuntu 11.10 VM I'm experimenting with because I discovered that I can't stand Unity or Gnome Shell. They're both very unfriendly to me but I understand how they could be better suited to some casual users or (in the case of Unity) to devices with a small screen.

  37. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I see you've been modded funny but I don't think that it was the aim of your post.

    You might want to read the "world is ruled by ducks"-part.

  38. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Huh, I wonder why more people prefer Android, a Linux OS, to say, iOS then.

  39. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by pmontra · · Score: 4, Informative

    Linux was even created because Linus wanted a free UNIX like desktop I'm sorry but you're mistaken. You can read the history of Linux's early days writted by Torvalds here. I quote him, bold is mine.

    It is currently meant for hackers interested in operating systems and 386's with access to minix. [...] I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got minix. This is a program for hackers by a hacker. I've enjouyed [sic] doing it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even modifying it for their own needs. It is still small enough to understand, use and modify, and I'm looking forward to any comments you might have.

    You're probably right on the other point

    Since the beginning Linux users have touted how this will be the year of Linux on desktop

    This is probably never going to happen (not with a substantial market share) but 2011 was the year of Linux in the pocket (remember Linux is only the kernel) and 2012 could be the year of Linux on the desk.

    because Linux users very much have wanted Linux to be number #1 on desktop

    That's unbelievable right? As if Mac users wouldn't like to see their platform to become the number 1.

  40. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by boxxertrumps · · Score: 2

    Most people are pretty lazy unless they're paid not to be, or they care for some other reason.

    Corollary: Most people don't care unless they're getting paid.

  41. please by StripedCow · · Score: 1

    Can we please stop drooling about office equipment.

    What's the next hype? Printers with built-in book-binders? Talking paperclips that can also listen?

    --
    If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    1. Re:please by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      This site has a lot of IT types who view and comment.

      IT types are the modern equivalent of file clerks. Office equipment is their forte.

      Why there aren't more fights on this site over red staplers is unclear.

  42. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Maybe the creators of Linux (and naturally the various flavours of Unix it comes from) also thought about users, but simply had a different subset of users in mind?

    Yes, The subset of users that think about other people in terms of set theory.

  43. Ideas of a feather, congregate together. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Before the iPhone, Apple's Stunning Phone From 1983

    Before everyone gets carried away with patent this and patent that. I'd bet if a lot of companies opened the concepts they were working on but never made, there would be a lot of both cool examples and a lot of similarities.

  44. Wrong title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It should say "Before the iPhone, Apple's Stunning Failure From 1983."

    1. Re:Wrong title by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      It wasn't a failure. It wasn't released. A lot of companies R&D make stuff they don't release.
      Perhaps they didn't want to go into that market.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  45. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    because its cheap in the short term, just like Windows

  46. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by rvw · · Score: 1

    Maybe the creators of Linux (and naturally the various flavours of Unix it comes from) also thought about users, but simply had a different subset of users in mind?

    Like ducks?

  47. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by brillow · · Score: 1

    If they were not concerned with technical details, why was the touchscreen operated by a stylus? Isn't a finger a superior pointing device?

  48. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by brillow · · Score: 2

    I think you're missing a subtlety here, Linux users DO want to mess with command line settings and tools.

    Apple users don't, and therefore they don't get them. No one tool is best for all jobs or all users.

    There is a false dichotomy in technological discussions that technological options can be ranked on a one-dimensional matrix.

  49. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The question is, and always has been, which is better overall? While citing best and worst examples from both camps can be illuminating, it does not make for proof that one is better than the other.

    That's probably because both are valid approaches which solve different problems. The Cathedral produces refined solutions which do one thing. The Bazaar produces a multitude of solutions which the Cathedral will knock off in their own image when the market chooses the most popular one[s].

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  50. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

    I think you are comparing apples with oranges.

    Apples and oranges are both fruit which can be peeled, eaten, juiced, or even separated into slices. That's a stupid saying.

    Linux is not a company so it doesn't have the same goals as a company.

    Yes, that is the whole point of this thread.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  51. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2

    Citations?

    It seems to me, that the original announcement about Linux didn't claim to have a desktop OS ready for use. In fact, it seemed to me like he was announcing something that may or may not work for some obscure purposes, of which he only had some vague ideas at the time. He sort implied that he hoped it might be comparable with Unix, with some maturity. I don't think he even used the word "compete".

    Go on, look it up, and see what he actually posted, way back when. But, be sure to put your own mind into way-back-when, and make sure you understand what he was trying to accomplish. Forget about SCO, forget about Win95, forget about all the fancy GUI's you've seen since then. Go back in time, in your own mind, then read Linus' announcement that he had something just about good enough for people to hack at.

    Years later, in hindsight, perhaps he may have wished that Linux was less embedded in the server world, and more conspicuous on the desktop. Then again, I don't really think he cares a whole lot.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  52. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Runaway1956 · · Score: 0
    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  53. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i can't read that, too tiny

  54. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pretty sure you get all the common *nix command line niceties out of the box on OSX - not on iOS tho, of course.

    All Mac-using *nix admins I know are rather happy with it (also terminal windows look gorgeous with Monaco).

  55. On screen keyboard? by wbr1 · · Score: 1

    It's nice but does the on screen keyboard support Swype?
    (Yes I am being facetious with EXTRA feces).

    --
    Silence is a state of mime.
  56. This gets posted twice a year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Old news is so exciting.

  57. Apple ][c by nurb432 · · Score: 2

    Looks almost like a touch screen version of an Apple][C. Now THAT would have been cool in 1983, perhaps even cooler than the Mac which came out the next year.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:Apple ][c by v1 · · Score: 1

      Looks almost like a touch screen version of an Apple][C

      I was surprised by the picture, how it's of the exact same style as the //c. Same color, looks like the same injection-molding matte finish, the (cosmetic only?) vent slots under the handset. The size and placement of the big colorful apple logo. It was probably designed to be a matched set.

      There were black and white LCD screens you could buy (for close to the cost of the computer, iirc) that attached onto the case and flipped down flat on the computer when not in use. (a bit like a notebook computer in that respect) Combine that with the other offerings of the day, a large briefcase size affair that carried the computer, a smaller keyboard, and a small pack of batteries, and you could turn the computer into something truly portable.

      I don't understand why the //c had that handle on it... if you were going to be going portable with it you weren't likely going to be carrying the computer around bare by its handle.

      --
      I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    2. Re:Apple ][c by nurb432 · · Score: 1

      Actually i think the LCD cost more than the computer, but i could be wrong. I do think a battery powered version was planned, but never happened. Most likely battery tech just wasn't up to it.

      Handle? It was more of a marketing thing i bet, or just planning ahead for the never to be released battery version. However, with the plus ( no external power transformer ) it was a bit more practical to take to a friends house..

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    3. Re:Apple ][c by Scoth · · Score: 1

      Apple was working on the Snow White design language at the time and designed lots of their products at the time to conform to it.

  58. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by johnlcallaway · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah .. that's exactly why Apple has grabbed the market share in computers and phones. Because it doesn't matter how much it costs as long as the user likes it.

    Apple is successful if one defines success as making huge markups on specialty items through the control of most of the hardware, software, and media channels that are needed to use the items.

    By that same token, any monopoly can be successful, and that's how Apple operates.

    I'm sure the reason this phone never made it because there was no demand for it. Who wants to spend large sums of money for a dedicated computer attached to a phone that can only be used for phone tasks?? Today's smartphones really took off when games and useful apps could be downloaded to them. The costs at the time would have put the phone above $500, hardly available for just anyone as shown by the lack of mobile phones in cars at the time. And the iDrones weren't around yet, so no one was going to go out and buy it simply because it said 'Apple'.

    There are many 'concept' items out there that show what companies are thinking. And most of them never show up simply because they cost too much to make for the demand that is expected.

    --
    I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
  59. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We tell people we use Linux because it's secure....google will tell you the rest of the story, bottom line: Linux is fun.

  60. no it's steve by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I though Steve Jobs designed all Apple stuff, because he always go all the credit?

  61. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by zippthorne · · Score: 1

    As a Mac user...

    I would not like to see it become #1, unless it was a plurality #1. I don't really care about Apple's profits except that I hope they're enticing enough for apple to keep making useful, pretty things that use unix under the hood, and selling at a price-point that I can afford to buy them. I don't need to have my purchase decision validated by the actions of other consumers.

    I think that means they need to be at least a little bit hungry. #1 (at least the way MS is #1) in desktops would not be helpful to that end. 10% is plenty, IMO.

    I don't think this would be an issue with a Linux as #1 scenario, as linux isn't a product, it's a field - even in a 90% linux scenario, there would still be dozens of companies all making their own improvements, some of which would get incorporated into the main line over time, and all those companies competing with each other for your custom.

    --
    Can you be Even More Awesome?!
  62. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by zippthorne · · Score: 1

    MS and tablet users don't get them.

    Apple users still have the command line, and there are some tweaks that can only be done with it in OS X. For instance, many of the sleep/hibernate settings are hidden under pmset, and there are a tone of "defaults write com.apple..." snippets out there.

    --
    Can you be Even More Awesome?!
  63. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by realityimpaired · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If they were not concerned with technical details, why was the touchscreen operated by a stylus? Isn't a finger a superior pointing device?

    It is now. But even as late as the mid-1990's, capacitive touchscreens were nowhere near as accurate as resistive touch screens, and resistive touch screens were a lot cheaper. That's why the early Palm Pilots, the Apple Newton, and other similar devices all used a stylus instead of a capacitive touch screen. It's really only quite recently that the capacitive touch screen has been accurate and cheap enough to be used in a device like a phone.

    Apple almost certainly thought of their users wanting to use a finger. And finger touch screens did exists (mostly using infra-red), but they either weren't as accurate, or weren't as cheap as resistive screens. :) It's most likely a compromise that's been made to keep costs down.

  64. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is a reason why the cathedral went to the moon. It's more efficient than the bazaar.

  65. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by picoboy · · Score: 1

    So, why do you think Apple is successful and Linux isn't?

    Assuming you are referring to Linux as in "Linux on the desktop", it's because the masses prefer the friendly confines of a walled garden over the freedom to run a lot of half-baked free software. (Sorry, I had a bad day a few weeks ago when the latest kmail2 that ships with Ubuntu 11.10 ate all of my mail, prompting countless wasted hours reinstalling older software, restoring from backups, etc).

    If you're referring to Linux in general, the reality is that Linux is actually way more successful than Apple, if you measure success in terms of deployed instances. I have no less than 9 embedded machines running Linux in my household if you include my and my wife's Android phones. Even if I chose iPhones over Android, the score would still be 7 to 2. I suspect even the households of Apple fan-people typically hold more Linux products than Apple products - they just don't realize it.

  66. Looks like ... by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... a sleeker version of a Minitel.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  67. First Camera Phone by FlyingGuy · · Score: 1

    Was invented by Phillipe Kahn. Say what you will but the man was ahead of his time. Borland made great products and was only defeated by skulduggery by Microsoft and an out and out fraudulent lawsuit brought by Lotus.

    --
    Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
  68. It looks fragile, like it would last a few months by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

    My preferred phone is the Western Electric 2500 set, which was the norm back in that era for home and business use.

    In the early to mid 1980s that size of an LCD display was fragile and very sensitive to the temperature of the room it was in. The prototype is obviously a 'concept' device. Anybody who has dealt with vintage Apple gear from that time knows that it would have to be conserved in a museum, i.e. the Stanford location where the only remaining example of this phone is kept.

  69. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can someone explain to me how you managed to prepare this entire post the same minute that the story was posted? You aren't a subscriber.

  70. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The question is, and always has been, which is better overall? While citing best and worst examples from both camps can be illuminating, it does not make for proof that one is better than the other.

    That's probably because both are valid approaches which solve different problems. The Cathedral produces refined solutions which do one thing. The Bazaar produces a multitude of solutions which the Cathedral will knock off in their own image when the market chooses the most popular one[s].

    Wow, you don't think knock offs are being created on both sides of this? Anything that isn't nailed down with IP law gets copied.

  71. "The archives are a close-guarded secret" -- not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stanford been working on cataloging and curating it for years. It is hardly a 'secret'.
    The bulk of it was from the former Apple Library and from a collection that Apple was building to start a museum when the Infinite Loop campus was opened.
    When the campus opened, there were retail stores across the DeAnza Boulevard side of IL. The Museum was supposed to be in one of those.
    One by one, they have all been forced out with the exception of the Company Store in front of IL1.

  72. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by AmberBlackCat · · Score: 1

    Cars and houses both have doors and windows, both use some form of gas and electricity, both are designed to hold people and protect them from the elements, both have air conditioning, and entertainment features, and even both have carpets. So by your definition or by everybody else's, comparing a car to a house is like comparing apples to oranges.

  73. Apple Phone by AmberBlackCat · · Score: 1

    Hey, it's got rounded corners...

  74. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, because the vast majority of the popular Android phones are so much cheaper than iPhones. Oh wait...

  75. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If macs ever go mainstream, I'm no longer going to be a fan.

  76. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Likely the same reason why people flock to MS Windows ... cause they don't know any better.

  77. Jailbreak by stevedmc · · Score: 0

    I wonder if Dev Team has been working on a jailbreak since 1983.

  78. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by CheerfulMacFanboy · · Score: 1

    So, why do you think Apple is successful and Linux isn't?

    Because Linux Fans like you have to even ask.

    --
    Fandroids hate facts.
  79. This reminds me... by sootman · · Score: 2

    I would love, love, love to have a regular cordless house phone that's as smart as an iPhone/Android/whatever. I still use my house landline some and I wish it were not so dumb. The best trick my home phone does is match incoming Caller ID to laboriously-entered contacts.

    The base station could double as a wireless access point and it would include a digital voicemail recorder which could be accessed with the handset and operate like the iPhone's visual voicemail. The handset could transmit calls to the base station with 5.8 GHz like a regular cordless (remember that word?) phone or it could be done with WiFi. Since it wouldn't be for carrying out and about, it could be as big as the late Dell Streak 5. You could use it as a regular phone or run Skype or Google Voice or any other VOIP client. Maybe the base station could run Asterisk. The possibilities are endless.

    --
    Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
  80. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by spasm · · Score: 1

    For a given definition of efficient. The cathedral model can be extraordinarily good at reaching difficult but definable goals, such as landing on the moon or developing the atomic bomb. But it's pretty hopeless when it comes to reaching hard to define goals - I can't imagine a Kennedy 'go to the moon' speech with the contemporary internet as the end result, for example - the contemporary internet is something that developed through bazaar-style accretion and the outcomes of putting all these random bits and pieces together keeps producing 'end results' that few people anticipate when they developed their little bits of it.

    The other efficiency problem with the cathedral is it frequently comes up with really expensive solutions. A cathedral approach certainly got to the moon *first*, but resulted a grand total of 12 people walking on the moon, and you'll notice no-one has stepped onto the moon in nearly 40 years. On the other hand, sometime in the next 40 years you'll almost certainly see people walk on the moon again courtesy of spacecraft developed through the kind of bazaar-like processes that have brought the price of air travel within reach of a lot of humanity - lots of companies and individuals all tweaking on various parts of the process in search of cheaper and better ways of doing things over long periods of time.

  81. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by axp_bofh · · Score: 1

    I think you're missing a subtlety here, Linux users DO want to mess with command line settings and tools.

    Apple users don't, and therefore they don't get them. No one tool is best for all jobs or all users.

    Actually, Mac OS X is a *certified* UNIX, along with Solaris, AIX, and HP/UX. What command line tools do you think it doesn't have?

    Linux isn't a UNIX, it's a unix-like system.

  82. a couple of things by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    An LCD panel for the A][c came out in 1984, so the touch panel on the phone was doable. The size of the phone is doable because there is no keyboard, floppy drive, expansion slots, etc. And the styling is doable because many companies have corporate design guidelines which make there products look similar. As to why this made it into /. ? must have been a slow news day. Every company experiments, just one item of many.

  83. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My home is mobile, you insensitive clod!

  84. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

    And you didnt read his whole post.

  85. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by dwater · · Score: 1

    I just ignored that part, assuming it was some Apple auto-correct doing a poor job as I understand is common.

    --
    Max.
  86. Geek by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I work at frog and have had the pleasure of seeing a number of cool apple artifacts including the form factor prototype on the Lisa... really gets my geek off.

  87. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by tragedy · · Score: 1

    I was thinking more along the lines of themselves and people like them. You know, people who already use Unix, computer geeks, etc. I'm not sure ducks are even in the set of what you would call users in this context. I'm pretty sure that most computer using ducks are using kiosk-type systems where the underlying OS is completely irrelevant. In any case, I'm pretty sure they never get to choose their OS.

  88. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > not on iOS tho, of course
    Why should that be obvious? I can on my Android phone, it's just linux.

  89. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You know who else got laughed at? Churchill, that's who. I find nothing funny about our aquatic avian overlords, in fact I'd say they are worse than Hitler.

  90. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by swalve · · Score: 1

    I respect that Apple likes good industrial design. What I don't respect is that they seem to value their own interpretations of what people want versus what actual people want. There is a healthy streak of "our way is better, people will get used to it" in their design choices.

  91. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    So by your definition or by everybody else's, comparing a car to a house is like comparing apples to oranges.

    If you're making comparisons that don't require discussing mobility, you can make a meaningful comparison between a house and a car. But if you really think that is parallel to what I've said (both fruits is parallel to both vehicles or buildings which is not the case here) then you need a tighter grasp on English, logic, or both.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  92. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Divebus · · Score: 1

    I'm not shilling for anyone but can see different companies doing different things better than others and just state my honest opinions about them

    You're definitely new here.

    --

    Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
  93. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

    you dont have to say something in order to imply it.
    Ask mommy what that means.

    --
    -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  94. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

    If you would have typed that 10 years ago, you would have been laughed out of the room as your typing it.
    This is a sad day for the tech industry...

    --
    -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  95. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by CheerfulMacFanboy · · Score: 1

    Yeah, because the vast majority of the popular Android phones are so much cheaper than iPhones. Oh wait...

    Galaxy S II costs $199 vs. iPhone 4S $299 at AT&T.

    --
    Fandroids hate facts.
  96. Another Prototype Out There... by mrjohns2 · · Score: 1

    There is a prototype for a for an Apple phone that was either a cross between a powerbook and a fax machine or a newton and a fax machine. I couldn't find it searching Google, but it had either a newton color or a powerbook color.

    --
    -- Matthew Johnson
  97. Siemens NotePhone by CheerfulMacFanboy · · Score: 1
    --
    Fandroids hate facts.
  98. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by aristotle-dude · · Score: 1

    AC didn't say that you have to be a fag to like apple. But, he stated the truth - Apple does appeal to fags. Next time you're in some gay coffee bar, tapping away on your gayPad, look around you, and see how many gays are also tapping away at their own gayPads. It's safe to say that possession of a gayProduct is an indicator on anyone gayDar.

    Something tells me that you had an embarrassing experience where you hit on some dude with an iPad and he told you that you were barking up the wrong tree and that the lady sitting at the table with him was his wife.

    Man, that must have been so awkward for you.

    --
    Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
  99. Re:Really nice looking and interesting phone for 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's obviously copypasta.