This in inarguably cool.
Author, investor, and all-around tinkerer Tony Fadell has posted an extremely cool tweet showing the prototypes for the first iPods, which were printed around May or June of 2001. The units were 3D-printed and offered an idea as to what the engineers could expect to work with and what the users might expect once they had the units in hand.
These plastic models are truly the first iPods. Around May or June of 2001, we 3D printed & machined these prototypes of the first gen iPod during the mechanical & industrial design process. They were just shells, but they were important.
Take a gander and let us know about your first iPod experiences in the comments.
Via @tfadell