It wasn’t good enough for Apple, but a version of the iPad that never saw the light of day was deemed valuable enough for a $10,200 bid.
That’s how much the first-generation tablet prototype closed out for on Ebay. There were seven users seen in the item’s bidding history that continued to outbid one another.
The obvious question is how the seller managed to get his hands on it – was he an Apple engineer or did the device already change hands before he took possession of it?
That question isn’t relevant to the winning bidder, who will now be able to boast about having an iPad with two dock connector ports – designed so that users would have easy access to a port whether they were using the device in landscape or portrait mode.
Of course, that idea was ultimately scrapped for the final version but clearly Apple liked the idea enough to build a working unit with both ports available.
Unfortunately, $10,000 isn’t even enough to buy a device with a working touchscreen. Even without a functional touch mechanic, the device is apparently fully operational.
“His iPad has 16GBs of capacity, and is incredibly unique. For starters, It has two dock connectors. Apple prototyped these iPads to have this connector late in the process and at the last minute decided to remove them.
“There are patent drawings and leaked casings that show the indents for both dock connector holes, but this unit has both dock connectors, and both are full functional for charging this iPad and connecting it to your computer,” the official Ebay description reads.
