People love when a big company such as Apple lose something as important as a next generation iPhone prototype. It’s the feeling of taking a look at something that shouldn’t be seen yet that make people love this stuff, and that’s the same reason why Gizmodo had millions of hits back in those Redwood days. People love to take a look at leaked products.
It’s not like Apple hadn’t lost anything before they lost the 4G prototype. Call them “controlled leaks” or just “leaks”, Apple’s labs are always working on new “gadgets” - 80% of which we’ll never see as actual consumer products. Macrumors has put together a brief gallery of “historic prototypes”, stuff that never officially left Cupertino’s secret caveau’s and that some brave people dared to post on Flickr. You can find the original post here.
Take a look at the pictures after the break. And the Mac tablet was so awesome.