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Leaked Apple documents suggest the iconic iPhone could have looked VERY different

THESE leaked pictures show how your iPhone might look completely different now if a massive feature hadn’t been culled from its design.

It’s hard to remember a time when Apple didn’t have a phone on the market, but way back when (ten years ago next week, to be precise) it was evolving from the  humble iPod.

Early designs of the iPhone include an on-screen click wheel, which took up the bottom portion of the screen
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Early designs of the iPhone include an on-screen click wheel, which took up the bottom portion of the screenCredit: YouTube / Sonny Dickson

One of the  first Apple phone designs had the aluminium chassis, multi-touch compatible screen, 2G connectivity and WiFi radios that we are familiar  with.

But it included one major feature that got axed: the  iPod click wheel, according to Apple leakster .

Dickson's website claims that iOS precursor named “AcornOS” used the click wheel to navigate the phones early apps.

Contrary to these early designs, Apple's iPhone operating system depended entirely on touch
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Contrary to these early designs, Apple's iPhone operating system depended entirely on touchCredit: Sonny Dickson
They appear similar to the iPod which had a click wheel feature
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They appear similar to the iPod which had a click wheel featureCredit: Sonny Dickson
Sonny Dickson claims iOS was first dubbed Acorn OS - which would make sense
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Sonny Dickson claims iOS was first dubbed Acorn OS - which would make senseCredit: Sonny Dickson

An appears to confirm these designs were once on the table

The patent documents describe the phone as: "A hand-held electronic device, comprising: a multi-touch input surface; and a processing unit operatively connected to said multi-touch input surface, said processing unit capable of receiving a plurality of concurrent touch inputs from a user via said multi-touch input surface and discriminating a user requested action from the touch inputs; and a display device operatively coupled to the processing unit and configured to present a user interface."

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The design leaks follow claims iOS 10.3 is raring to go.

Apple lovers can look forward to a rumoured Popcorn button for a new cinema mode that could turn off all alerts at once.

And details about the iPhone 8 are slowly coming in, check our  Apple rumours page for more.

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