PALO ALTO, California — The first iPhone “prototype” was strung together using bits of wood, duct tape and some old Polaroid lenses.

Key members of the Apple team reminisced about those early DIY efforts Wednesday night during a discussion led by Brian Merchant, author of The One Device, a new book about the birth of the iPhone.

“This thing was really kludged together,” said Brian Huppi, a former Apple engineer who helped build the first system. “It was built out of wood, duct tape and old lenses from the ’60s.”

One day in early 2005, interface designer Bas Ording was sitting in a secret, windowless lab at Apple HQ when the phone rang. It was Steve Jobs.

The first thing Jobs says is that the conversation is super-secret, and must not be repeated to anyone. Ording promises not to.

“He’s like, ‘Yeah, Bas, we’re going to do a phone,'” Ording told Cult of Mac, recalling that momentous call from long ago. “‘It’s not going to have any buttons and things on it, it’s just a screen. Can you build a demo that you can scroll through a list of names, so you could choose someone to call?’ That was the assignment I got, like pretty much directly from Steve.”

If you hadn’t heard by now, this week marks the tenth anniversary of a little device called the iPhone going on sale. To celebrate, the Wall Street Journal has created a new mini-documentary, entitled Behind the Glass, detailing the making of Apple’s breakthrough smartphone.

Courtesy of interviews with former Apple execs Tony Fadell, Scott Forstall and Greg Christie, here are the top factoids we learned from it.

A key executive within Apple is reportedly leaving the company due to a fallout with design chief Jony Ive. The result is that Ive will directly control even more of how Apple designs its software.

Greg Christie has been getting a lot of attention lately in the Apple vs. Samsung patent trial for his role as an engineer for the original iPhone. And that’s not all he’s known for; the guy has also patented nearly a hundred ideas for Apple, including the iconic “Slide to unlock” patent Apple is using as evidence in the ongoing case with Samsung.

Christie has been heading up Apple’s software design under Craig Federighi. But according to a new report, Ive is basically pushing Christie out because the two haven’t been getting along.