This Original Idea for the iPhone is So Stupid That I Kind of Want One

The iPhone’s multi-touch display is one of the phone’s greatest innovations. But wouldn’t you know it, Steve Jobs and the team almost went in a different, stupider direction.

The iPhone almost had a click wheel like the iPod. But it wasn't a physical click wheel, it was a digital one. The video above from Apple leaker Sonny Dickson shows the click wheel from “Acorn OS,” which Mashable describes as, “an iPod-based interface for the iPhone that Apple was working on before deciding to go with the now-ubiquitous icon-based interface.”

Apparently, Apple had two teams working on the iPhone’s operating system, one that was led by Tony Fadell, the “father of the iPod,” and other by Scott Forstall, who was the Vice President of iOS software before leaving because everyone hated Maps. Fadell was working on this click wheel version based on the success of the iPod.

Obviously, “turning it into to a rotary phones from the 60s,” as Fadell puts it, wasn’t the way to go.

Check out the video and imagine a reality where you absolutely hate your iPhone.

via Gizmodo