Prototype dual-docking iPad sells on eBay for £6,500
Want a sneek peak at the iPad there never was? Well, if you had a spare £6,500 knocking about, you could have owned your very own piece of Apple history, as a prototype first generation iPad tablet, featuring dual portrait and landscape docking ports made its way onto auction site eBay.
It’s an interesting glimpse at Apple’s product development process, and in typical Apple fashion, a “less is more” approach won out, with the dual-docking version resigned to the history books.
Notoriously secret about the design and development process (this is a company that keeps prototypes under lock and key in hidden vaults), its a wonder the eBay seller ever managed to get his hands on the device, let alone get it onto eBay without it being spotted by Apple and pulled.
That’s not to say Apple hadn’t done the utmost to stop it from being anything more than a brick; the eBay seller has had a hard time refurbishing the tablet, making it “fully functional apart from the touchscreen, which may or may not be able to be fixed”.
It does come with Switchboard, Apple’s testing software suite installed, which must have made it even more tempting for the auction’s lucky (read: insane) winner.
To see the full eBay listing before it’s removed from the site (which includes a gallery showing the slate from all angles), click here.
