The inside story behind Apple's secret code names

Apple's culture of secrecy means all products get code names before they leave the Cupertino campus. 

Most of them are fun jokes, but one has even landed Apple in a lawsuit with a famous astronomer.

Here are nine of the best code names for Apple products:

In late 2004, years before the rest of the world would hear of an iPhone, a small group of Apple engineers started working on a secret project.

The top-secret project, codenamed "purple," was the development of the iPhone. The Purple Project was worked on inside what was nicknamed the "Purple Dorm." "We put up a sign that said ‘fight club’ — first rule of the Purple Project is you don’t talk about Purple Project outside those doors," revealed Scott Forstall during Apple's trial against Samsung. Apparently the Purple Dorm also smelled like pizza, just like college.

Scott Forstall told the inside story of the development of the iPhone 5 years after it had been revealed publicly.

The original iMac G3 came out in 1998 in a bright "Bondi Blue" color. When Apple updated its iMac with the Revision C model, the company introduced five new colors: Blueberry, Grape, Strawberry, and Tangerine.

The five brightly colored machines were nicknamed the "Life Savers." Jobs joked in the 1999 unveiling that "we hope people want to collect all five."

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