The iPod-based interface that lost out to iOS for the iPhone:
Instead of the modern touch-driven interface we now call iOS, it featured an operating system dubbed “Acorn OS” (this was an internal code name, and it unclear if it would have kept that name if it had been released), which is derived from the acorn shown on boot. It presents an on-screen click wheel, which took up the bottom portion of the screen, and on the other half of the screen, a UI identical to the one found on the beloved iPod, with options such as “Dial”, “SMS”, “Music”, “Contacts” and “Recents”, however lacking a browser option. The interface is interacted with in the same way an iPod would be operated.
Thank goodness Apple did not go with that option. The iPhone shook up the entire phone industry and, in my opinion, is single-handedly responsible for the interface of all the smartphones we use today. I had other touchscreen phones and PDAs before the iPhone came out (namely Palms and Windows Phone 5), and while they were usable, they just never worked as well as they could.
If the iPhone had gone the route of the iPod interface, it would have been the next Motorola Rokr.
(Via SonnyDickson.com ).