i joined the iphone team in the fall of 2008, as an iphone software EPM, but was soon asked to lead the software project management efforts for a new device. which i later learned was a tablet...
8 years ago today i sat behind al gore in the yerba buena center as steve showed the ipad off to the world. in honor of those 8 years, i thought i would share 8 memories from my time working on the "magical device".
(1) steve carefully chose the le corbusier chair that was used for the event. there was a sea of LC2 armchairs and each was carried out so he could inspect it in the stage lighting. did it have the right coloring? was there wear in the right places? did it have the right sit?
(2) when the third party developers were brought in a few weeks before the event, they were told they were only flying in for the day for a meeting. when they found out they would be stuck there for weeks, we had to take them to target to get more clothes and other necessities.
(3) the third party devs were escorted and monitored at all times. we all signed up for shifts, even on the weekends. they weren’t able to bring their phones into their workroom, or use wifi, and the ipads were hidden in stealth cases so they couldn’t see the ID before the event.
(4) at one point steve wanted to turn UIKit elements orange. not just any orange, he wanted a particular orange from the button on a certain old sony remote. we got a bunch of remotes from sony with orange buttons to try and find the right one. in the end, steve hated it.
(5) right before the holiday break in 2009, less than a month before the announcement, steve decided he wanted the ipad to have homescreen wallpaper. an engineer worked through the holidays so steve could see it when we got back. the feature came to the phone in iOS 4.
(6) angry birds was released in dec 2009. a few of us on the team had become addicted and i knew it was going to be pretty big. we wanted it to be shown on stage at the event to demonstrate compatibility mode, but not everyone agreed with us.
(7) steve felt the UI behind scroll views (safari, mail etc.) looked unfinished. he wanted the attention to detail to be carried all the way through, even to parts you wouldn’t always see (“back of the cabinet” argument). so the macOS dashboard linen texture was brought to ipad.
(8) when steve held up the ipad, a journalist behind me screamed “OH MY GOD! IT’S THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING I'VE EVER SEEN!” i got a taste for what "insanely great" felt like. little did i know it would be the first of many moments like this, but it would always be my favorite. 
