Apple released the iPod Nano in various designs throughout its wheel of life. The Nano models ballooned and shrunk with each new generation. Now, a tweet by a former Apple executive reveals that the Cupertino tech giant even considered an edge-to-edge design for the iPod Nano. It was years before the first iPhone was released.
To prepare the way for his upcoming book “Build”, former Apple executive Tony Fadell took to Twitter and revealed various mockups of the iPod Nano. Fadell posted an image on his Twitter that shows six different iPod mockups.
They were just 3D printed dummies, something to hold in your hand, but they’re what made the project real.
— Tony Fadell (@tfadell) May 2, 2022
According to the former Apple Exec, the mockups were just 3D printed dummies. As he explained, the dummies were “something to hold in your hand, but they’re what made the project real”.
Fadel further wrote, “creating a model is a technique to trick the brain and kick start the imagination – once you make it concrete, once you see and feel it, you can start to imagine how it will fit into your life or the lives of your customers”.
The first iPod Nano was launched in 2005, 13 years before the All-screen iPhone X. Although its edge-to-edge model was only a mockup and never got released, still it’s interesting to think that Apple at least considered the design.
Fadell said he wrote an entire chapter about the iPod Nano in his book. So, if you’d like to learn more about Tony Fadell or the iPod Nano, his book goes on sale today.
For those of you who don’t know, Tony Fadell is the inventor of the iPods. In 2001, Apple Computers hired him as an independent contractor. He was tasked to supervise a team of 30 employees in developing a new MP3 player that would later be called the iPod.
Fadell collaborated with PortalPlayer, a firm that had been working on their own MP3 player, to build the software for the new Apple Music player. Tony Fadell’s team and PortalPlayer created a prototype iPod in eight months. Apple improved the overall user interface by including the well-known scroll wheel.
Related:
