What was your point? (See my previous message again) I was offering you some factual information about Apple's prototype policies because you seemed to be questioning them.

The iPad's continued prototype security policy after its announcement was likely due to threat of theft, allowing someone to crack it open for a closer look, possibly giving competitors some weeks to months of advantage.

When products are in initial proto stages they don't even have final enclosures - often no enclosures at all. At that point in time many of their projects are "eyes only" within partner companies, often even within a team that otherwise all work with Apple.

When we worked on the Cube and the mini we didn't have final enclosures until after those products had been announced. For larger desktops we'd usually have a proper enclosure a few months before announcement. With notebooks it varied, but early revs always had the mobo and panel assemblies laid up in a plexiglass frame/enclosure. Some of these were crazy/insane secretive such that they had to be locked up in a secondary area within an already locked (pass-coded) room where only a handful of people had access.