If you’re familiar with the iPhone’s history, you know that during the development, Apple reached a crossroads in which they could either keep using the click-wheel interface that was popularized by the iPod, or a pared down touchscreen version of OS X. Obviously Apple went with the latter which was conceived by Scott Forstall.
Now in today’s smartphone scene, it’s hard to imagine an iPhone that doesn’t run on iOS, but if you are curious famed leakster Sonny Dickson recently posted (via 9to5Mac) a bunch of screenshots and a video that alleged shows that an iPhone could have looked like running Acorn, which was the name given to the click-wheel based OS that was created by Tony Fadell.
For the most part it looks a lot like Apple’s iPod, and to be fair given that many users were already familiar with the design and navigation, it probably would not have been as wild a concept back then as it seems like now.
For those wondering if the video is legit, Dickson points to a patent filed back in 2006 that shows the diagram that corresponds with one of the screenshots. It is interesting to wondering if Apple had gone with the click-wheel interface, would the iPhone have been this successful, and how would the smartphone landscape look like today? That being said, given how clunky it looks to use Acorn, aren’t you glad Apple went with the latter choice?