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A rotary iPhone?

The Macalope
Born of the earth, forged in fire, the Macalope was branded "nonstandard" and "proprietary" by the IT world and considered a freak of nature. Part man, part Mac, and part antelope, the Macalope set forth on a quest to save his beloved platform. Long-eclipsed by his more prodigious cousin, the jackalope (they breed like rabbits, you know), the Macalope's time has come. Apple news and rumormonger extraordinaire, the Macalope provides a uniquely polymorphic approach. Disclosure.
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The Macalope
2 min read

The Macalope wants to delve into the iPhone nano rumors spun out of a report from JP Morgan Tawain's Kevin Chang that were briefly touched on MacBreak Weekly.

In a rather hilarious move, JP Morgan's U.S. group came into the office yesterday morning and said something to the effect of "Kevin Chang? Never heard of him. Not one of our analysts. Maybe he works for Piper."

Now, the horned one was actually an iPod shuffle doubter before the smallest iPod of them all came out, so maybe his track record on this isn't the greatest. But it seems to him that the killer feature of the iPhone is the interface. If you ask around, what is it all the kids want? A phone jammed onto an existing nano and priced to move or an iPod with the Multitouch interface? It's the latter, which is precisely why the horned one doesn't think Multitouch iPods are coming next month. Apple's got a good thing going with iPhone sales. They'd be foolish to mess with it right now. January's more likely.

But let's get back to the technological marvel Apple would be delivering with the so-called "iPhone nano" according to these reports. Yes, it's rotary dial!

I'm sorry, Macalope, you're breaking up. Did you say "rotary dial"?

Yep. Now, yes, the patent in question did also feature the ability to click areas of the scroll wheel directly to get a specific number, but this strikes the furried iPhone-phile as exactly 84.5 times as maddening as the virtual keyboard.

The beauty of the iPod shuffle is that it removed the extras and achieved simplicity. If Apple is going to jam a phone onto the current iPod nano form factor, perhaps the missing piece to the iPhone nano puzzle is a feature the iPhone itself is lacking -- quick and easy access to your contacts. Much as the shuffle removed navigation, a successful "iPhone nano" would have to remove dialing as much as possible. So maybe it's possible, but what was it that Steve Jobs actually joked about at the Macworld keynote?

Rotary dial.

So, for what it's worth, the Macalope doesn't think this particular "iPhone nano" will ever see the light of day. More likely is a cheaper Multitouch-based iPhone maybe without the video capability.

Remember, just because they patent it, it doesn't mean they're going to make it.