If anyone even had a remote chance of making rotary dial phones popular again, it would be Apple. MacNN is reporting that the latest patent they have been granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office is for a clickwheel phone that operates, strangely, like those phones the number pad killed.

Don’t get excited about an iPhone nano, as the patent was filed for in July 2006, perhaps as a decoy or killed concept during the iPhone development process. Personally, We're glad this wasn’t the direction Apple went with the iPhone. If you thought text messaging with a number pad was bad, think searching for anything on an iPod classic, and you know this wouldn’t turn out well.