Apple products have become more than just computing devices. They are status symbols, pop culture art pieces, and even handheld creative studios. It was easy to see the impact the company and their technology had on consumers with the eager anticipation that greeted their product announcements. And no new product has filled our collective imaginations like the iPad. In one fell swoop, Apple sounded the death knell for laptop and desktop computers, devices they helped place in nearly every American home. But the iPad, with the power of a laptop now as slim and portable as the latest issue of Time Magazine, has become the technology to have, the one thing that shows other tech geeks that you’ve ‘made it’. Apparently, sharing a piece of that revolution is worth a lot to one person, $10,800 to be precise. That was the purchase price received when the very first iPad prototype was auctioned on eBay this week.

If Steve Jobs is in heaven, he is surely looking down with a smile. The iPad prototype was auctioned at nearly ten times the price of a current iPad on the market. So why so much for something that could be had much cheaper at any Best Buy or Apple Store on the planet? Well, there’s certainly something to be said for having the ‘first’ of anything. People pay top dollar for originals. In the art world, that translates to millions of dollars for even simple paintings that have a certain popular name signed on the front. It’s American exclusivity at its finest and grandest.

This prototype iPad is also slightly different from the other ones on the market. It’s completely functional, so the purchaser isn’t left with something that must simply sit on the shelf and be admired. One variation from the common iPads on the market is the inclusion of Dual Dock Connectors. That means the user can plug the prototype in for charging and communication with their computer through either of the vertical or horizontal docking connections. It’s a simple difference, but it does mean you can continue to use the iPad while it’s charging in either view, without a cord cluttering up your workspace. Additionally, the prototype iPad comes with SwitchBoard, Apple’s software testing suite, still installed. That difference may be even more impactful, as there are probably only a handful of publicly-sold iPads in the world that still run this software. It’s a way for die-hard Apple fans to feel even closer to their favorite brand, and interact with the iPad the way the designers do.

So outside of the astronomical price, is there any downside to this prototype? Well, it is a used machine, and it isn’t perfect. According to the seller’s description on eBay, there are issues with the digitizer and the touch screen. What those issues are wasn’t specified, but the seller wasn’t completely clear if either situation is fixable. The prototype iPad also comes installed with an earlier battery, meaning there’s a chance it has a much shorter operating life.

When originally placed on eBay, the prototype was listed with a starting auction price of $4,800. It also had a ‘Buy Now’ option at $10,000. It’s rather surprising that it ended up going for $800 over that price. Perhaps the buyer should have saved those hundreds of dollars to purchase the world’s fanciest screen protector, fitting for the world’s most expensive iPad.

Editor’s Note

Thanks to Evan Fischer for this guest post. He is a freelance writer and part-time student at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California.

[eBay]