iPhone OS 1.0 Acorn builds

Two Acorn iPhone prototypes

iPhone OS 1.0 Acorn builds or AcornOS are early prototype builds of iPhone OS 1.0. There are currently 2 known AcornOS builds, both of which remain unleaked, shown by Sonny Dickson on January 2017. The builds run on P1 and P2 iPhone prototypes respectively. [1] It is rumored that Tony Fadell designed the P1 OS and that Scott Forsal designed the P2 OS.

P1 "classic"[edit | edit source]

This ran on the P1 iPhone prototype and runs what appears to be a port of the iPod System Software to the iPhone, with a virtual set of buttons and a click wheel, but the iPod System software has a few additions such as a call menu and a diagnostics menu with stuff such as bluetooth testing and CPU clocking. A gallery of this build is https://sonnydickson.com/2017/01/06/the-ipod-based-interface-that-lost-out-to-ios-for-the-iphone/ . Tony Fadell confirmed it's existence in a Tweet (now an X post)[2]

P2 "system"[edit | edit source]

This ran on the P2 iPhone prototype and has a touch based interface with a bunch of crude blue boxy buttons on a white background with crude messages on the bottom. The gallery of this build is here https://sonnydickson.com/2017/01/11/how-apple-picked-what-came-to-be-the-iphone/

According to Bob Burrough in a youtube comment, this isn't iOS/iPhoneOS and his team designed it.[3] According to him, iPhone OS was so secret that only an exclusive, select few people -- who had to be personally approved by Steve Jobs -- could see it. What you see in the video is a fake UI that everyone else -- hundreds of test engineers, carriers, etc -- got to see[4] This likely applies to the P1 prototype as well.

Known footage[edit | edit source]

Interface[edit | edit source]

One build has a very similar appearance to the operating system used on the iPod; this build was likely for a test with the iPod touch. Another build used a menu with squared buttons.

Gallery[edit | edit source]

  • Boot screen

    Boot screen

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eJZH-nkKP8
  2. ↑ https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/06/apple-history-acorn-a-virtual-click-wheel-based-os-which-lost-out-to-ios-shown-in-its-2006-era-glory-video/
  3. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eJZH-nkKP8&google_comment_id=Uggi9_eOdHlhKHgCoAEC
  4. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eJZH-nkKP8&google_comment_id=Uggi9_eOdHlhKHgCoAEC.8NaC_dkWaQp8NciZxb04l6
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