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New Video Pits iPhone Click Wheel Prototype Against Scott Forstall's Icon-Based iPhone Prototype

A couple days ago Sonny Dickson shared a look (http://www.macrumors.com/2017/01/06/original-iphone-prototype-ipod/) at one of two early prototypes for the original iPhone, the iPod Click Wheel-based OS that iPod "Godfather" Tony Fadell was working on. Tonight, Dickson has shared a video (http://sonnydickson.com/2017/01/11/how-apple-picked-what-came-to-be-the-iphone/) pitting Fadell's version against Scott Forstall's icon-based iPhone prototype, which went on to become the basis for iOS.





<center><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0eJZH-nkKP8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></center>


Fadell's prototype was referred to as P1 while Forstall's prototype was referred to as P2. The two projects reportedly went head to head (http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/13/scott-forstalls-personality-origins-of-ios-and-lost-iphone-4-prototype/) in 2005 when Steve Jobs pitted the two against each other. While the P1 used the click-wheel interface to navigate the OS, the P2 used a series of touch-based icons to move around the OS.





Both P1 and P2 run a prototype OS Apple codenamed "Acorn OS" internally, though Dickson notes that P1 runs faster because it uses a slimmed down version of Acorn OS. Each prototype also sports a unique logo that pops up after the Acorn OS logo while it boots up.

The P2 loads octopus whereas the P1 has the iPod classic logo. The P2 takes a significantly longer to load because it actually has a real OS, whereas the P1 takes much less time since the OS is slimmer. These P unit prototypes are so early in the development process that they rely on a custom process to be turned off, and can only be powered down during a certain step of the boot process.

The video, and accompanying photos, provide both a look at the choice Steve Jobs and Apple employees faced as they were developing the iPhone and iOS 10 (http://www.macrumors.com/roundup/ios-10/) years ago and how Apple explores ideas. As Dickson notes, "P devices" are the first step of any project at Apple. They're barely-functioning devices that allow the company to explore and test concepts, iterating on them until they're satisfied enough to push the project further.





<img src="(http://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2017/01/Screen-Shot-2017-01-10-at-9.48.12-PM-800x487.png)" alt="screen-shot-2017-01-10-at-9-48-12-pm" width="800" height="487" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-543125" />


More images of the P2 iPhone prototype are available on Sonny Dickson's website (http://sonnydickson.com/2017/01/11/how-apple-picked-what-came-to-be-the-iphone/).

<div class="linkback">Related Roundup: iOS 10 (http://www.macrumors.com/roundup/ios-10/) </div>
Discuss this article (http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/video-iphone-click-wheel-prototype-forstall.2026940/) in our forums

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Source: New Video Pits iPhone Click Wheel Prototype Against Scott Forstall's Icon-Based iPhone Prototype (http://www.macrumors.com/2017/01/11/video-iphone-click-wheel-prototype-forstall/)