By Dan Satherley
Photos of an iPad prototype from almost a decade ago have surfaced in documents from the ongoing Apple vs Samsung court battle.
The first iPad didn't come out until April 2010, but it seems Apple had the basic idea for the wildly successful touch-screen tablet computer as early as 2002.
In documents just released, Apple designer Sir Jonathan Ive talks about photos and designs of a mock-up tablet device he says date from somewhere between 2002 and 2004.
"My recollection of first seeing it is very hazy, but it was, I'm guessing, sometime between 2002 and 2004," Ives is quoted as saying. "I remember seeing this and perhaps models similar to this when we were first exploring tablet designs that ultimately became the iPad."
The photos show what is clearly a touch-screen tablet – it has no keyboard, and one of the images is of a man using his finger to do something on the screen.
Other photos show it has rounded corners just like an iPad, and the ubiquitous Apple logo on the back. It is however much thicker, significantly larger and lacks a 'home' button.
Tech site Gadgetbox said the photos are "clearly the basis for the drawings in a patent submitted in March of 2004… the angles and figures are exactly the same."
At the time of the mockups Apple was yet to develop iOS, the operating system found on the company's iPads and iPhones.
In 2010, then-CEO Steve Jobs said the idea for the iPad came long before the iPhone.
"I had this idea about having a glass display, a multitouch display you could type on with your fingers," said Jobs. "I asked our people about it. And six months later, they came back with this amazing display. And I gave it to one of our really brilliant UI guys. He got [rubber band] scrolling working and some other things, and I thought, ‘My God, we can build a phone with this!’ So we put the tablet aside, and we went to work on the iPhone."
The first iPhone came out in 2007, three years before the iPad.
The early date of the photos is important, as Apple claims Samsung's phones and tablets infringe on its intellectual property – including design – whilst Samsung says Apple's devices infringe on its mobile communications technologies.
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