AppleInsider Staff
If Apple does unveil an "iWatch" later this year, it won't be the first time the company considered a wrist-worn communicator, according to a recently-published retrospective of Apple's design history by legendary industrial designer Hartmut Esslinger.
One image from Esslinger's book — entitled "Keep It Simple: The Early Design Years of Apple" — reveals a keypad designed to be worn on a user's wrist that pairs with a wireless headset. The photo is one of a number excerpted from the book and published by German weekly Die Zeit.
The keypad sports 12 keys in all, one each for the numbers 0 through 9 and what appears to be one key each for star and pound. The headset, meanwhile, is a single-earpiece design with an integrated microphone that would curve around to the wearer's mouth.
Also shown off in the tome is a monolithic, foldable workstation-in-a-box concept based on the Lisa. The now comically large-looking prototype boasts a full Lisa computer, a monitor, a telephone, and a printer in a single package.
Both pieces seem to follow the "Snow White" design language that Esslinger created at the behest of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs in 1984. The designs first appeared in production with the Apple IIc, and the company began phasing Esslinger's work out following the release of the Macintosh IIfx in 1990.
Esslinger joined Apple on an exclusive contract in 1982 but left the company after Jobs's ouster. Esslinger followed Jobs to NeXT, but did not rejoin Apple upon Jobs's return in 1997.
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12 Comments
Is it me or does the mouthpiece look like a old school hockey goalie stick?
The display is just gorgeous and the all-in-one earphone combo mic was obviously designed for the monaural audiophile to wear not only for comm and music but as a fine fashion accessory. One might imagine that it got pulled on advice from legal due to neck strain (since there is no counter weight the balance the audio gear it might have left them open for a class action suit) ¡
Just my personal opinion. If there's anyone who was able to out-reality-distortion-field Jobs, it was Hartmut Esslinger. Jobs was completely duped by this guy with his white square boxes covered with dust collecting grooves. But Jobs finally came to his senses after Esslingers brilliant Next black box with dust collecting grooves, and embraced a true design genius in Ive.
Okay, so I have this nice, extensive book of Apple product product images… but it doesn’t include images of all of the Snow White prototypes! This is actually my first time seeing this headset/wristwatch combo! I’m a little disappointed in my book now.