Oh, what might have been! Don't you wish you were privy to the various prototype designs that Apple cobbles together on its path to perfecting a product? Some of them must be pretty darn nifty, even if they wind up changing drastically before making it onto store shelves. The LCD iMac, in particular, went through some serious changes throughout its development; we recall some Jonathan Ive interview somewhere in which he revealed that his original designs did the obvious thing and built all of the Mac into the thickness of the screen itself, and Steve made him start again from scratch.

Well, we doubt we'll ever get to see those original scrapped designs, but The Mac Observer was cool enough to dig up a new Apple patent for a "display device with a moveable assembly," which comes complete with line drawings-- only the drawings don't quite match up with the iMac as shipped. The base and screen looks pretty much the same, but the arm... well, geez, take a look for yourselves. The arm is either seriously cool or seriously messed up, depending on your sensibilities. Instead of the double-hinged chrome-looking jobbie with which we're all familiar, it's one of those multi-jointed hose-looking thingies that you sometimes see on desk lamps, or scary medical equipment that only gets wheeled out when there's something seriously wrong with you.

Now, like we said, you may like the hose-thing better than the released design, but based on the facial expressions of the people we flashed the drawings at, the odds are pretty good that you don't. (Oh, that poor checkout lady at Trader Joe's... luckily we had smelling salts at the ready.) Personally, though, we think it's sorta neat. For one thing, it certainly provides a whole heckuva lot more freedom when it comes to positioning the iMac's screen; sometimes you just want to twist the whole thing upside down so you can read while doing yoga, you know? And being able to twist the arm all the way around itself like a pretzel would provide a handy place to hold a lovely beverage. Mainly, though, we can't help thinking that this earlier design was heavily influenced by someone having read one too many Spider-Man comic books. Wow, even before the movie sequel, Doc Ock does live-- in convenient high-tech patent form!

Incidentally, does anyone find it interesting that the patent was granted to "Jobs, et al"? No fewer than seventeen people are listed as inventors, but "Jobs, Steven P." is first on the list-- while "Ive, Jonathan" for some reason comes in second to last. Apparently the Stevester is at least as hands-on as people who've worked with him (often tearfully) attest.

But we digress. So do these drawings indeed represent a prototype iMac design that evolved into the current hinged-arm version, or is this an inadvertent sneak peek into the iMac's future? Well, most likely the first thing, since the patent was filed over nine months before the first flat-panel iMac was introduced. But hey, you never know; with rumors of a semi-imminent iMac G5 running rampant, maybe Apple will resurrect the older design for a movie tie-in. Only it'll have four screens, sunglasses, a dorky haircut, and a penchant for tossing cars through café windows. Sign us up!