The launch of the iPhone 3G S pretty much killed whatever rumors that were previously floating around regarding an iPhone Nano, but that doesn’t people will now stop thinking about it. As a matter of fact, this new unearthed patents only makes us wonder more what the new iPhone Nano will eventually look like. Based on these diagrams, it seems that Apple is planning to integrate the clickwheel interface to the touchscreen design as well as incorporate a rear “force-sensitive touch based surface.”

[mobilesyrup via bgr]
More pics and details after the break.

It’s not exactly the most intuitive design for a touchscreen phone, but due to its smaller size, this may have been one of Apple’s last resorts to pack all those features in. Anyway, considering that this is still just a patent, there’s that ever looming possibility that it won’t even make it into production.

One good thing, though, we can take away from all this is the fact that Apple is indeed working on an iPhone Nano. When it will be released is anybody’s guess, but at this point in time, we reckon it’ll be a long wait before we see any prototype models hit the scene.