Remember the whole iPhone 4S / iPhone 5 blow up? The iPhone 4S arrived with Siri, an awesome new camera and a faster processor – but it looked just like the iPhone 4. There were no design changes, and that pissed off many folks who thought that they would be getting the iPhone 5 – a giant redesign that featured a slimmer frame and a larger screen.

Well, according to Business Insider, that phone existed – in prototype form.

They quote “a industry source who has been right about future Apple products in the past,” but also warn to “read this post with a nice fat dose of salt.” Let me add another giant spoonful of salt on this one – it is truly a rumor if there ever was one.

But it’s interesting nonetheless.

According to the source, “Apple engineers he knows thought until about three months before the iPhone 4S was released, that a new fully re-designed iPhone was going to be Apple’s next big announcement.”

Here’s what the prototype supposedly looked like –

• Bigger screen
• Aluminum backs like the iPad 2
• Liquid metal technology to make different colored phones
• Thinner and Wider
• No physical home button

Why did we not see this phone back in October? Well, the sources weren’t sure, but they said that rumor had it (yes, a rumor within a rumor, Inception style) Steve Jobs scrapped it:

Steve Jobs was unhappy with the bigger screen because it “fragmented” iPhones, Apple’s big argument against Android is the way all the different phones from different manufacturers fragment that operating system.

What do you think? Could Apple have scrapped a device like this so soon before launching the 4S? Does this smell like total BS to you? Let us know in the comments.