The secret behind Apple's codenames.

With a culture known for its high level of secrecy, all of Apple's products have code names during the development process.

Unlike other companies, Apple has always placed a strong emphasis on secrecy for its products. The company founded by Steve Jobs has surprised fans many times with unpredictable products, most recently the Apple Watch and iPad Pro.

Most of the secret names for products under development are playful phrases, but one of them became the focus of a defamation lawsuit filed by a prominent astronomer.

Let's take a look at some interesting names Apple has given to its products in development.

In late 2004, three years before Steve Jobs shook the tech world by announcing the launch of the iPhone, Apple began developing the phone as part of a secret project called "Purple."

Project Purple was conducted in an area nicknamed "Purple Dorm" at Apple. In Apple's patent lawsuit against Samsung, Vice President Scott Forstall stated: "We put up a sign that said 'Fight Club' – the first rule of Project Purple was you weren't allowed to talk about Project Purple outside those doors." Fight Club is the title of a famous movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, with the secret line that Apple allegedly "copied" above the sign.

The iMac G3 was launched in 1988 in a bright "Bondi Blue" color. After Apple upgraded the iMac to the Rev C generation, Steve Jobs' company released four new colors for this legendary PC: Blueberry, Grape, Strawberry, and Tangerine.

Apple nicknamed the five colorful iMacs "Life Savers" after a popular five-flavor colored candy sold in the US. Steve Jobs once joked, "We hope people will want to collect all five."

When Apple released the Power Macintosh 7100 in 1994, they hoped this powerful PC would bring in billions and billions of dollars for the company, as the 7100's internal designation suggested.

Initially, the Power Macintosh 7100 was named Carl Sagan after a famous astronomer. After Apple revealed this name in an interview with MacWeek in 1993, about a year before the product went on sale, the astronomer complained. Shortly afterward, the Macintosh 7100 was internally renamed BHA, short for "Butt-headed astronomer."

Sagan was particularly offended by the name "BHA," to the point that he sued again over it and... failed. Once again, the astronomer took the old "Carl Sagan" name of the Macintosh 7100 to court for defamation, and again failed. Eventually, Sagan and Apple reached a settlement, but Apple engineers managed to come up with yet another name for the Power Macintosh 7100: "LAW," short for "Lawyers are wimps."

Before its final name, Mac OS was simply named System by Apple. By 1995, Apple had developed it to version 7.5.

System 7.5 was internally nicknamed "Mozart," after the famous Austrian composer. However, upon hearing that rival Microsoft was developing Windows 95 with the codename "Chicago," after the American city, System 7.5 was renamed "Capone," after a notorious criminal in Chicago in the early 1930s. Apple's goal at the time was... to scare Microsoft.

Although it was rumored to be called iWatch, the Apple Watch actually had its own name during development: "Gizmo".

The name may have been inspired by a character from the 1994 film Gremlins, but it could also simply be slang for electronic accessories.

The MacDraw application was released by Apple on Mac computers in 1984. Initially, MacDraw was almost launched under the name "Mackelangelo," after the famous painter Michelangelo.

The Macintosh 6100 was once considered by Apple to fill a gap left by previous Mac releases. Apple engineers dubbed the Power Macintosh 6100 the "Piltdown Man," after a fake archaeological artifact once touted as "the missing bridge between ape and man." Piltdown was later discovered to be a fake, but the Mac 6100 survived for two years.

Long before the launch of the Apple TV, Apple had developed a "hybrid TV-computer" called the Macintosh TV. Released in 1993, the Macintosh TV integrated both a cable TV receiver and a Mac, allowing you to work and watch TV simultaneously. Besides the nickname Peter Pan, the Mac TV also had the moniker "LD50," a term used in the medical field to describe lethal doses of medication when administered at 50%. Sadly, this nickname proved fatal to the Macintosh TV, and Apple only sold 1,000 units before discontinuing the product line.

Despite being named after big cat species and, more recently, geographical locations, Apple's operating systems are actually internally nicknamed after types of wine.

Mac OS X 10.3 Panther had the internal codename Pinot, 10.4 Tiger had the internal codename Merlot, and 10.8 Mountain Lion had the codename Zinfandel. With version 10.9 Mavericks, Apple switched from cat names to Californian place names, but this version of Mac OS X still had the internal codename Cabernet Sauvignon.

According to VnReview