CDMA iPhone was codenamed ACME at Verizon and required a PIN to be entered every 12 hours

Apple Inc no comments
May 25, 2011 at 10:34 am

In a lengthy post, Technobuffalo goes behind the scenes of the iPhone Verizon launch earlier this year.  Supposedly, Verizon engineers had been working with it for six months – which put it at about the time that AT&T iPhone was released.  Interestingly, Steve Jobs said at the Antennagate press conference, that Apple was testing both Verizon and AT&T towers on campus.

Some notables from the story:

Though key employees and executives were in the loop, everyone else at the carrier knew little more than the rest of the public. And it would seem the higher ups wanted to keep it that way. No one talked about the Apple smartphone externally, and even internally, it was still a hush-hush operation. In fact, says the source, the word “iPhone” was never uttered; only its codename was referenced: It was called the “ACME” device.

And…

Our source describes a unique protocol requiring staffers to text a secret PIN code to a dedicated phone number every 12 hours. This served as ongoing confirmation that the handset was still in the proper hands. So no PIN code, no functionality.

A little bit like LOST?  Interesting if true because the software wasn’t different – the hardware was – and a PIN isn’t going to block someone from seeing that.

 

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