I'm not sure how this relates to Apple specifically, apart from their reputation for secrecy. What large tech company allows its employees to disclose details of cancelled projects?
I definitely have a problem with companies claiming the right to your brain 24/7 outside of office, in the proverbial shower, dreaming up an idea entirely unrelated to one's employment. But the very nature of the transaction to work on UI ideas for Apple is that Apple would "own" those ideas.
Also, my Firefox browser twice popped up warning about a slow page when I enabled JS for that page, and I finally gave up. And all this, simply to see a basic text with an empty box. So, this will be an unpopular thought, but it is possible that his prototypes were in fact carefully considered and considered non-optimal, for a variety of practical reasons.