Apple Sent Out Pre-Release iPhones in Disguise
3:50 pm, July 29th, 2007, Pete Mortensen
Despite the best efforts of folks like me, bonafide iPhones didn’t show up in the wild until a few week prior to release. As it turns out, that’s because Apple was smart enough to hide iPhones inside of other devices. This according to Richard Burns, AT&T’s President of Wireless Networks, in an interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal.
So secretive was the project that he didn’t even show the phone to his wife. And when AT&T’s team of testers hit the streets to try the phone in ballparks, subways and skyscrapers, Burns said they used a contraption to cloak the device so nobody would know what the testers were holding.
Burns declined to offer a description of the cloaking device, calling it “something that looked like something else.”
That’s how you know Apple is brilliant: They made it look like “something that looked like something else.” How visionary. Or not.
My best guess is that Apple made the iPhones look like Zunes. Any other guesses?
Via Digg.
Image from Hideapod.
Posted by Pete Mortensen in Hardware Hacks, iPhone | Comment on this article
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How about an Apple Newton?
Brandon W., on July 29th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
>Any other guesses?
Chihuahuas
Michael, on July 29th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
This procedure is well known in car development. The cloaked prototype is called an “Erlkönig”.
Chris, on July 29th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
An “elf king?” In the States we call it a “mule,” likely a reference to being a beast of burden.
On their first try AT&T disguised them as Ann Coulter books, figuring that would scare the curious away. Unfortunately it led to 87% of them being set on fire. For their second attempt they attached a Brownback for President sticker to it, and no one even asked to see it. For employees that didn’t want to be associated with Brownback they substituted a Bill Richardson sticker. Same result.
imajoebob, on July 31st, 2007 at 6:09 pm