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
From pay phones, flip phones to the Blackberry, nothing compared to that very first iPhone
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.
