Steve Jobs e-mail confirms Apple was engaged on an ‘iPhone nano’

In 2011, rumors swirled that Apple was engaged on a so-called “iPhone nano,” a brand new iPhone that might be smaller and cheaper than the top-of-the-line mannequin on the time, the iPhone 4. While Apple by no means did launch that rumored super-small telephone, a Steve Jobs e-mail we noticed whereas gathering the perfect emails from the Epic v. Apple lawsuit confirms the corporate was certainly engaged on an iPhone nano at one time limit.

Unfortunately, Jobs’ October 2010 e-mail, which is an agenda for a method assembly, doesn’t reveal a lot in regards to the system. There’s a bullet for an “iPhone nano plan,” a sub-bullet for its “cost goal,” and one other sub-bullet indicating that “Jony,” presumably Apple’s former design chief Jony Ive, would “show model (and/or renderings).” A “2011 Strategy” bullet earlier within the agenda has a sub-bullet that claims “create low cost iPhone model based on iPod touch to replace 3GS,” however it’s unclear if that’s referring to the iPhone nano or a special system fully.

While Apple doesn’t use the “nano” branding for any of its bodily smaller merchandise proper now, Apple had simply launched its sixth iteration of the vastly well-liked iPod nano when Jobs despatched this e-mail, so the branding nonetheless carried some energy at the moment.

The iPhone nano really isn’t the primary mysterious “nano” Apple product that has appeared in a gathering agenda despatched by Steve Jobs discovered as a part of the Epic v. Apple trial. An August fifth, 2007 Jobs e-mail shared by the Internal Tech Emails Twitter account refers to a “Super nano,” which appears more likely to have been an upgraded model of the iPod nano, that was on monitor for a launch within the first half of 2008. Apple didn’t find yourself releasing an iPod nano in that timeframe, and though it did launch the tall fourth-generation iPod nano in September 2008, we don’t know if this was the “Super nano” to which Jobs was referring.

Apple has moved on from the nano branding, finally discontinuing the iPod nano in 2017, and opted as a substitute for the “Mini” moniker for the presently out there iPhone 12 Mini and the HomePod Mini. Still, it’s enjoyable to think about what an additional small iPhone nano might have seemed like, particularly in 2010 / 2011, when the iPhone 4 had a now-tiny 3.5-inch display screen. Maybe if Apple had launched the iPhone nano, Jobs may have pulled off one of his most famous reveal tricks a second time.