Take a bite out of this one. Try a cursory search for an "Apple Phone" in the patent office (you could try Google Patents), and one of the items that pops out (the first, in fact), dates back to the 1980s. It's an Apple Phone alright, but it ain't exactly touch-screen.

  

This is one of the set of patent drawings for "the ornamental design for a telephone, as shown and described," filed in 1982 by Denni F. Rivette, et. al. We guess the only connection this patent has to Apple is Rivette, et. al.'s acknowledgement that the aesthetic design for the phone is taken from the trademark Apple logo (it's there in the patent). We don't know if this was a design commissioned by Apple or the inventors are just giving Jobs due props (most likely the latter - the 80's weren't the iAge).

Still, looking back all these years, one can only imagine if Apple thought of capitalizing on its Apple image. Of course, back then, its image wasn't about all things i- (like iPod, iMac, iTunes, iWantEverythingSuffixedBy"Pod", iTV, iPhone...).

Hey, we're actually quite amused.