Divorces to secret team: The story behind the origin of the iPhone

As Apple's iconic iPhone completes 10 years of success, literally, a new book named ‘The One Device: The secret history of the iPhone’ will be releasing on 20 June. The excerpts, released by TheVerge, divulge some interesting details about how the first ever iPhone was built. It encompasses the groundwork that led to building the iPhone.

According to the report, a secret team was built and the 'best minds' were taken away to work on this 'secret project'. An employee recollects that he was called  and was asked if he could work on a project that 'he can't be told about and would have to do it right then'.

To finally build the first iPhone wasn't easy and the engineers faced tremendous pressure, to such an extent that it resulted into a couple of failed marriages. “Yeah, the iPhone ruined more than a few marriages,” an employee reportedly said.

Though the iPhone Project was revealed in 2004, decades of software research went into turning the dream into reality. 

Tony Fadell, also known as the 'godfather' of iPod, claimed that he secretly build iTunes from March 2006 to November 2008, though Jobs shot down the idea.

On the other hand, the report also reveals that Phil Schiller was not too enthusiastic about the touchscreen, and wanted a keypad instead. However, Schiller has refuted the claim, and has been backed by Fadell.

 

Now, iPod was the most popular Apple product, back then, and iPhone with music capability would mean a setback for the iPod. “Take the best of the iPod and put a phone in it,” Fadell reportedly said. “So you could do mobile communications and have your music with you, and we didn’t lose all the brand awareness we’d built into the iPod, the half a billion dollars we were spending getting that known around the world," he added.

The iPhone was codenamed 'Purple'. "The software for the iPhone would be built by Scott Forstall’s NeXT mafia; the hardware would go to Fadell’s group. The iPhone would boast a touchscreen and pack the power of a mobile computer. That is, if they could get the thing to work," the report adds.