It's fascinating how you can see other manufacturers' production designs hidden among these prototypes, too. It makes it pretty obvious that although some designs are obvious, where most companies design a product, produce a prototype, tweak it and send it to manufacturing, Apple designs a product, produces a prototype, tweaks it, sends it to manufacturing, then takes a look at the finished version and gets ready to start over from scratch if it isn't perfect.

It almost lends some credence to Apple's claims of trade dress infringement that have been so widely mocked. Most manufacturers released their own take on a smartphone to not much acclaim before settling on something very like an iPhone. Apple cries foul, to which the gadget using populace replies, "Come on, this is obvious-- there's only so many shapes it could be. Quit whining."

So Apple goes, "Yes, and it took us forty-five revisions to figure it out. It took our competitors two. It's almost as if they had some help, isn't it? Do you really think it's easy to work out the exact shape that something should be? Do you think it's free?"

Not saying it's clear cut, but it's swayed me quite a bit in their direction.