Original iPod Prototype
October 23rd marked the 20th anniversary of the original iPod's introduction. To celebrate, our friends at Panic decided to share a treasure they'd found in their archives: a prototype of that first-generation model. Dated September 3rd, 2001 — less than two months before it's introduction — the tech inside was near-final, yet the enclosure was anything but. In an effort to hide the size of the device, it's simply massive, with a tiny screen in the upper right corner, a row of large buttons below, and a working, if rough, wheel on the upper left. Neither for sale nor all that functional, it's nonetheless an interesting look at the development of one of the most influential products of the past two decades.
