AirPods come in white, white and also white. But a collector scored a prototype pair in very unusual translucent blue casings.
Taste a rare look at a product that’ll never hit store shelves.
Translucent AirPods prototypes. Weird.
Pictures of the AirPods prototypes come from Giulio Zompetti via Twitter. He describes them with a laconic, “#AirPods, translucent prototype earbuds.”
#AirPods, translucent prototype earbuds pic.twitter.com/zE4dt47H0J
— Giulio Zompetti (@1nsane_dev) November 30, 2021
Zompetti doesn’t have a reason for the translucent casing. It’s possible these were used to allow engineers testing theAirPods prototypes to see the internal components. But if that were true, completely clear casings would be a better option.
Perhaps Apple was instead exploring the possibility of AirPods in translucent casings, perhaps in a range of colors. They match the look of the original iMac G3. If so, the idea was dropped. Every earbud in the AirPods line has been white… as noted.
And a transparent Apple charger prototype
The AirPods aren‘t Zompetti‘s only recent acquisition. He also shared pictures of a prototype 29W Apple charger in a transparent casing on Twitter.
29W Apple Charger prototype. pic.twitter.com/h2ZoHCMw0F
— Giulio Zompetti (@1nsane_dev) November 23, 2021
These are far from the first Apple prototypes Zompetti has located. He raised a big stir by finding a working AirPower unit, a product Apple famously announced but never released. And he has a prototype iPad with landscape and portrait charging ports. There are other devices in his collection, too.