Apple’s iPod nano was launched in 2005 and has undergone different iterations throughout its life cycle. Now, one of the executives responsible for creating the iPod is showing off some of the mockups he created to explore the product’s possibilities, as he rolls out a book called “Building an Unorthodox Guide to Making Something Worth Making.” Build An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making).
Tony Fadell, former senior vice president of Apple’s iPod division, tweeted an image of six different iPod nano models. As he explained, they are just 3D printed models that can be felt in the hand.
For example, the first model is pretty much the design of the fourth-generation iPod nano released in 2008, while some others look similar to the first-generation product.
“What if the screen was this big? What if the pulley was that big? What if there was no pulley?”
For example, one of the models is the edge-to-edge design of the iPod nano. Some might say this is a notch-less iPhone, but it’s interesting to see Apple experiment with this design, even though it’s just a dummy.
The story behind the iPod nano is in a chapter of Fadell’s new book. In a section titled “Making the invisible visible,” the former Apple executive said that making the invisible visible is “one of the most important parts of product development — even if you’re not building hardware.”
