iPod Touch Prototype Could Have Been 2013 Mac Pro's Ancestor

The 2013 Mac Pro was notorious for being a radical departure from Apple's usual design acumen, sporting a form that was derisively compared to a trash can. It was also one of the very few Apple products to sport a glossy black finish, also a first for the Mac Pro line. It turns out that Apple has long been toying with the latter material as far back as 2007 and could have even debuted on a similar radical departure from its iPod line, the iPod Touch.

In the grand scheme of things, the iPod Touch was almost like Apple's proverbial red-headed stepchild. More than a simple iPod, it afforded some of the features of the iPhone but wasn't really an iPhone either. Apple would eventually make the iPod Touch look more like an iPhone but there were points in time when it thought about giving it a bit of a different character.

A tweet reveals that the first iPod Touch could have ended up differently, with a glossy black back rather than the reflective silver that it actually launched with. The source describes it as having the same material as the 2013 Mac Pro, though that is hardly the only "Jet Black" product that Apple launched. This iPod Touch, however, would have been a first if it did.

Since then, Apple has launched other black products, like the iPhone 3G the year after the iPod Touch first launched, the iPhone 4, the iPhone 7, and a Space Black Apple Watch. That said, those glossy black rears haven't exactly been popular as they seem to have been very susceptible to scratches.

Not too long ago, an iPod Touch 3 prototype surfaced also bearing what could have been a radical shift in Apple design. It considered putting the camera right in the middle of the device's back, something it has so far never done with any of its iPhones either. Apple eventually launched the iPod Touch 4 as the first of its kind with a rear camera in a location exactly like the iPhone's.