When Apple finally takes the wraps off its long-anticipated tablet next Wednesday, the device will strike a familiar chord with owners of the original iPhone, with similarities in industrial design trickling all the way down to the handset's button and connectivity components, AppleInsider has learned.
Nearly two and a half years have passed since AppleInsider exclusively reported in September of 2007 that the Cupertino-based gadget maker planned to follow the blockbuster success of the iPhone with a broader entry into consumer electronics, spearheaded by a completely new category of device akin to a "slate" and reminiscent of a modern-day reincarnation of the company's now defunct Newton tablet.
Since then, Apple has surprised in its capacity to work alongside dozens of partners and still maintain a relatively tight lid of the product's design, feature set, and software-driven functionality. Though recent weeks have been met by a flurry of reports on Apple's likely intentions for the device, a 28-month trail of rumors and speculation have left onlookers with exponentially more questions than answers.
One lingering uncertainty has surrounded the device's aesthetic or, more precisely, what it may look and feel like in a user's hands. According to people familiar with the device, it's largely redolent of a first-generation iPhone that's met its match with a rolling pin.
Of all the mockups and renderings that have surfaced on the Web attempting to depict what the final product will look like, the rendition below created by Flickr user Fotoboer.nl last August is strikingly close to the real deal, those same people say. It would be more precise, they add, if it weren't missing a handful of design elements of the iPhone.
Nestled in an aluminum shell that leverages the Apple's expertise in unibody construction but thinner proportionality than the original iPhone, the tablet reportedly sports all of the same buttons found on the handset, right down to its iconic home button -- which, like the volume toggle, is missing from the rendering.
