In the two years leading up to June 29, 2007, when Apple’s iPhone went on sale, company co-founder Steve Jobs and a select team were hard at work secretly designing what would become a global game changer. 

The initiative even had a code name, “Project Purple.” By all accounts, the project was pained. 

Inside a secure room, a collection of super smart techies, ate, slept, worked way beyond the typical eight hour day, fought and, at times overthought, the design of this new slick mobile device.

​Before that day, flip phones, Blackberries and even the occasional pager were commonplace.

Pay phones were rarer still.

Photo gallery: America’s love affair with the ever-evolving phone

Ten years later, Jobs is no longer with us, having passed away in 2011.

But most of the public is hunched over a hand-held device, iPhone or not, accessing the internet, watching videos on demand, and conducting mobile banking. 

Time magazine published the final public video appearance of Jobs before he died after a 10-year battle with pancreatic cancer.

Apple, of course, is still redesigning, and hopefully improving upon, that first, innovative cell phone.

Later this year, the iPhone 8 will be released amid much speculation and apparent premature leaks. 
…