Although most of us have come to dislike the ongoing patent wars between Apple and the rest of the world, at times some good can emerge from them. Images from a December 2011 deposition in an Apple vs Samsung fight have emerged, showing Apple’s earliest iPad prototype from 2002. It is safe to say the iPad of 2002 is nothing like what hit markets in 2010.

As you can see from the images below, the iPad prototype from 2002 is more or less an enlarged version of an early generation iPod:

Clearly the eight years between 2002’s iPad prototype and 2010’s iPad release was well spent with Apple refining the product.

Aside from seeing the first iPad prototype, it is interesting to note the iPhone actually emerged from the above-mentioned iPad prototype and not the other way around. As Steve Jobs said back in 2010:

I’ll tell you a secret. It began with the tablet. I had this idea about having a glass display, a multitouch display you could type on with your fingers. I asked our people about it. And six months later, they came back with this amazing display. And I gave it to one of our really brilliant UI guys. He got [rubber band] scrolling working and some other things, and I thought, ‘my God, we can build a phone with this!’ So we put the tablet aside, and we went to work on the iPhone.

And you thought the iPhone inspired the iPad. Silly you.

[via Network World]