Ina Fried

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Apple’s Case Against Samsung Gives Rare Glimpse at Dozens of iPhone and iPad Prototype Designs

One of the fun side benefits of the Apple’s court case against Samsung is being given an inside peek at how the Cupertino, Calif.-based company develops its new products.

That’s because, as part of its case, Apple is forced to hand over tons of documents to Samsung, a good number of which Samsung has, in turn, filed as exhibits to various motions and pleadings in the case. While Apple has been able to keep some things private, there have clearly been more things made public than the secretive company would prefer.

Among the many filings on Saturday was a document with dozens of sketches and prototypes for both the iPhone and iPad. Some had already been included in earlier filings, but Saturday’s collection was particularly extensive.

The filing features a host of sketches, images from computer-aided design programs, and photographs of actual models that Apple fabricated as part of its design process.

In addition to the Sony-influenced and “Extrudo” designs featured in several earlier filings, there were iPhones with slanted corners, and iPhones that looked like the iPod.

On the iPad side, there were iPads with square corners and iPads with round corners. Earlier filings showed Apple considering a kickstand for the iPad. Also interesting is that some appear to date back to 2004, well ahead of the iPhone designs, reinforcing the idea that Steve Jobs spoke of at our D: All Things Digital conference that the idea for the iPad actually predated that of the iPhone.

In addition to the prototypes and diagrams, Saturday’s filings included some emails and depositions that offer a further sense of Apple’s thinking as it creates new devices.

Check out our gallery to see dozens of images from the filing:


Apple versus Samsung Full Coverage

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