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Comment by shlip | Hacker News Reader

> It's the design mock up from the final presentation to Motorola for the iRadio (name later changed to Envoy).

> The head of frogdesign, Hartmut Esslinger met Spielberg on a plane and showed him this mockup. Steven asked if it could be used as a prop in the film, and Hartmut gave it to him.

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It’s mind-blowing to me that the actual guy who designed it chimed in. Assuming it’s not a fake comment, what are the odds!?

Much greater than now, given the open discoverability of the original post here, versus the walled-off content we have today, locked away in discord servers and the like.

Furthermore, the act of replying to that post will have bumped it right back to the top for everyone to see.

I agree with this. We are much missing these forums with civil replies and clouded behind "influencer" culture, which is optimized for incentives. Pure discussions as in this example are such a stalwarts of open web.

On the other hand, small websites and forums can disappear but that openness allows platform like archive.org to capture and "fossilize" them.

Like mosquitos trapped in amber, preserving hidden blocks of knowledge

These forums still exist. Typically with much older and mature discussions, as the users have aged alongside the forums. Nothing is stopping you from joining them now.

My Something Awful forums account is over 25 years old at this point. The software and standards and moderation style is approximately unchanged, complete with 10 dollar sign-up fee to keep out the spam.

That's why I like HN, it seems to happen a lot here! Mention a piece of hardware or software, even something obscure from years ago, and half an hour later you've had an answer to your question from the designer or the CEO.

Me too. I'm just afraid that it's because there are shrinking pools of rationality on the internet. They're here for the same reason you are; HN doesn't suck nearly as much as the alternatives.

Pretty high on the RPF, actually! Especially in the early days, a lot of film, prop, and design industry professionals would congregate there and exchange information or big shop folklore. It was a pretty cool place (not saying it hasn't continued to be one, but I haven't been a regular in probably 20 years).

Wow, Motorola had an iRadio before Apple released their first iPhone? I did not know that.

"iPhone" was an Infogear, later Cisco, trademark, for the InfoGear iPhone (1997--2000 / InfoGear, Cisco/Linksys 2006--2007), which was licenced to Apple.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(internet_appliance)>

<https://www.cultofmac.com/apple-history/cisco-infogear-iphon...>

It was licensed... eventually :) Cisco where quick to bring Apple to court if i remember correctly.

I was at Cisco when the Apple iPhone was announced. It was rumored to be happening, so Cisco rushed out a Linksys VoIP(?) phone rebranded (it might have just been a sticker) as an "iPhone" so they could defend the trademark. They quickly reached an agreement with Apple. I remember they might have been getting their VPN included on the device. I'm sure there was a similar issue with iOS, and that caused me to get a lot of not-so-relevant emails from recruiters looking for mobile devs.

The weirder phone that they had was the ROKR in 2005. It was a collaboration with Apple and worked with iTunes. People say that it helped Apple get in the phone business, and helped Motorola become even more irrelevant in that space around this time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Rokr_E1

ok so it now begs the question... whos plane was this?

The question that flew under the radar ;)

This is really cool information

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