How the iPhone avoided being leaked
We all knew Apple was going to announce the iPhone at yesterday's Macworld keynote, but we didn't really know, y'know? Despite years of anticipation, false starts, and promised rumors, we can't decide if we're more impressed by what Apple managed to pack into the iPhone's slender frame or their ability to keep the entire thing an absoloute secret. Fortune takes a look at the process, covering the highly secretive cooperation with cell-carrier Cingular, the unusually distributed effort within Apple itself, and the increasing strain placed on the personal lives of employees tasked with long hours and strict confidentiality. Perhaps most interesting was the creation of "bogus prototypes" that they used with not only Cingular executives but with Apple exployees themselves. Lucky for us, an insider deep inside the core of Apple sent us this cameraphone snap of an early prototype featuring a (now absent) external antenna. What is that, a granny smith? Sweet! Errr, rather, sour.
