It's no secret that Apple worked on several prototypes at once, went through several
The prototype iPhone OS was controlled by the system underthe name "Acorn OS", which instead of the touch screen, had a scroll wheel displayed at the bottom of the screen to navigate through the system interface and scroll between its elements. The user interface was very similar to that used on iPods equipped with a click-wheel for control. It is interesting to note that while Acorn OS had all the usual applications, such as Phone, Contacts, and Messages, it lacked a browser application, which was one of the key factors that influenced sales of the original iPhone.
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Looking at "Acorn OS" it appears that someits elements were still used in the version of iOS used in the original iPhone. There were several prototypes of the iPhone at Apple running the Acorn operating system, but all of them were likely destroyed over time.
In the end, Apple decided to usethe touch interface for the iPhone and that was the right decision, since the scroll wheel at the bottom of the Acorn OS took up too much space. However, it is possible that the displayed scroll wheel was just an emulation of a physical scroll wheel, similar to the same wheel on an iPod.