For those familiar with the history of the iPhone and iOS, you know that at the start Steve Jobs basically pitted Tony Fadell against Scott Forstall to see who could come up with a better mobile operating system. Since the clickwheel iPod was popular back in the day, Fadell naturally turned to a familiar design which resulted in an OS called “Acorn”.
However as you probably know by now, Forstall’s OS won, which was basically a pared down version of Apple’s desktop OS which eventually evolved into the iOS we all know today. For those wondering how the early prototypes look like, you’re in luck as blogger Sonny Dickson has posted a video that compares Fadell and Forstall’s operating systems side-by-side.
Dickson posted a video last week that showed off Acorn, but like we said if you are curious as to how either platform runs compared to the other, the video above should answer many questions. In the video, Forstall’s OS is referred to as P2 while Fadell’s Acorn is referred to as P1.
It is obvious that these are early prototypes as the overall design is rather rough and crude in terms of its operation, but we guess Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs saw something in Forstall’s creation that led to him picking it. It’s hard to imagine if the iPhone would be as successful and if smartphones would be where they are today had Jobs gone with Fadell’s “Acorn” OS.