What was the first iPhone?

Photo: Tom Warren

Weird question. Many saw his presentation, in which Steve Jobs, in particular, stated that the new smartphone had been developed for two and a half years. Shortly after this, the novelty appeared on the shelves of communication salons.

It is curious to see what prototypes modern iPhones and iPads had
kriokamera , from here

But it turns out, the very first iPhone looked like a big motherboard-like motherboard. He made one of them himself to play everyone, and sent someone Red M Sixty (currently banned on Twitter) to The Verge’s editorial board, who decided to remain anonymous. Thanks to this prototype, engineers and programmers could work on the future iPhone, not knowing not only the appearance of the finished result, but even its name: they were given a fee under the code names M68 (reference to m68k?) And Purple 2 (Apple II?). Jobs really wanted to surprise everyone EXTREMELY.


Graphics: Wil Joel
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Of all the connectors present on the prototype board, only two remained in the serial iPhone - the “jack” and the now almost forgotten 30-pin connector, which by that time was already used in all iPods. Therefore, to connect the board to the computer was not a problem: every employee of the company had the appropriate cord. Subsequently, the connector remained unchanged until the iPhone 4s inclusive.

Three “tulips” served to connect the board to a TV with an RGB input (almost any TV with a SCART connector came up). The fact is that on some of the prototypes there were no displays. Four more "tulips" allowed both to take an audio signal from the board and to send it there, imitating a headset. Two 3.5-millimeter jacks served the same purpose.

Well, if the display, for some reason designated as Grape, was present, the place under the Home button was glued to it. And the corresponding button was located on the board next to it. On the left, there were three more buttons on the board: power, volume up, volume down. And the camera on the cable, as well as the place under the “prox flex” - the cable has not yet been developed by the time of manufacture of the “ear sensor” board. Prior to this, there were no such sensors, since devices with resistive sensors were not required.

Two huge antennas were designed to communicate via WiFi and Bluetooth. The engineer could connect to the RJ11 connector ... a regular wired telephone imitating a standard microphone and an iPhone speaker. And to the RJ-45 - patchcord from the wired router.

If the Samsung K4X1G153PC (ARM1176JZF) 620 MHz processor is soldered into the board, then the two boards are removable. The first of them is a radio module, which is almost the same as that used in the first serial iPhone. It uses chips from Intel, Infineon, CSR, Marvell and Skyworks. The second is more interesting - it is located on the flash memory Samsung K9HBG08U1M with a capacity of 4 GB. To work with the firmware of another version, it was enough to quickly change the board - like a cartridge in the game console.

The power supply through the 30-pin connector board, apparently, was not enough. Therefore, the developers have provided a coaxial connector and a linear stabilizer with a low voltage drop. The button next to it could disable it. Do you want to check how the board behaves with the battery? Solder it to the appropriate sites, after removing the jumper J49. And make sure everything works correctly before getting into production. JTAG connectors, as befits them, are designed for low-level firmware and debugging, and many large connectors, similar to those intended for floppy drives, allow you to connect probes and monitor signals on various lines with an oscilloscope. You can even reconfigure the device with DIP switches or “talk” using a terminal emulator with a main board and a radio module via two Mini USB connectors, and through a COM port with a standard DB connector you can see how the device interacts with accessories connected to the 30-pin connector here the external power supply also came in handy, since the connector was busy in this case.

When they tried to turn on the board, she showed a logo with an apple and did nothing else. When connected to a computer with a modern version of iTunes, it was defined as an iPhone, ready for recovery.

Starting with the fourth iPhone, prototype boards began to be made more miniature . And even later, they began to overlay those areas on the device that employees should not be aware of prior to the start of sales. Other manufacturers of smartphones also provide developers with similar prototype boards.

PS If this is being read at the Apple Technology Museum , try contacting The Verge, suddenly you can get a fee from them.