Earliest iPhone prototypes had tablet-sized 5″x7″ screen, tons of ports

There is no shortage of iPhone prototype leaks on the web, but while we’ve seen some early protos, going back in time to some of the earliest iPhone development, you’d find weird tablet-sized devices with screens measuring 5” by 7” and with a ton of ports.

What you are seeing below are exactly those - early iPhone prototypes dating back to 2005, some two years before Apple released the phone that changed smartphones. Ars Technica obtained the images from an ex-Apple employee involved with hardware design in the early 2000s, but wishing to remain anonymous.

"Seems large now, but at the time it was really impressive seeing basically a version of OS X running on it," the source commented.

What’s also interesting is the fact that Apple seemed to have sketched the rough guidelines for what the future device would look like. For instance, it uses an ARM chip back then with focus on relatively good battery life performance.

For the curious ones, the chip on the images is a 200MHz one, manufactured by Samsung, while the original iPhone would get a much more powerful chip in 2007, but also made by Samsung. You’d also see a ton of ports attached to that screen, and to clear up confusion - those were used for development purposes. Take a look at that early iPhone version, looks interesting, doesn’t it?

source: Ars Technica