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?
8 responses to “Apple Sent Out Pre-Release iPhones in Disguise”
How about an Apple Newton?
>Any other guesses?
Chihuahuas
This procedure is well known in car development. The cloaked prototype is called an “Erlkönig”.
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.