IPhone is not the first Apple phone

The iPhone is the first Apple cell phone, but not their first. In 1993, it seemed that cellular communications would remain a premium service forever. But it even gave an advantage to developers, because a landline phone with an integrated computer can be made quite large. The WALT (Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone) device was released in several copies for MacWorld. Visitors to it must have been somewhat distressed that the phone they saw there did not hit the store shelves.

In general, the name is strange. What relation to an active lifestyle can have a stationary device?

The device, developed in conjunction with BellSouth, received functions that were quite advanced for its time: online banking, touchscreen, fax and caller ID, built-in address book, the ability to change the ringtone, handwriting as in Newton.
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It is assembled mostly from the parts of the PowerBook 100 laptop, and works under the control of System 6 with modified screensaver and interface. The OS is on the hard disk, not in the ROM, as on some early Macintoshs.

So WALT looks from the inside by the motherboard:


And the display, for communication with the sensor is responsible for the pairing board:


The resistive sensor is better controlled with the stylus, and here it is very convenient:


An instruction was attached to the device, which not only said that it was a prototype, but also provided instructions such as “do not use the WALT near water”, “do not drop the WALT”, and also provide an illustration warning against stepping on cords.

WALT has external interfaces typical for those years: SCSI, VGA, audio output. Instead Finder it uses HyperCard. And now let's see how it works: