Apple’s teaser for the first iPhone.
Click to enlarge.
FORTUNE — In advance of Tuesday’s special event — announced last week with the graphic at right — The Verge‘s Jacob Kastrenakes has collected a decade’s worth of these press invitations, 27 in all, including the invite, above, to the 2010 Macword at which Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone.
Journalists have made a parlor game of trying each time to divine from the art and tag lines what Apple (AAPL) had up its sleeve.
Seen as a collection (and not, thankfully, as a 27-page slide show), it’s clear that Apple’s messaging has become more obscure over the years.
The invitation to the October 2003 event at which iTunes for Microsoft (MSFT) Windows was unveiled, for example, was billed as follows: “The year’s biggest music story is about to get even bigger.”
Whereas last month’s “This should brighten everybody’s day” signaled nothing about the new iPhones.
Except in retrospect, Kastrenakes points out, the iPhone 5S home button was hidden right there in plain sight. See below.
REMINDER: Tuesday’s event is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern. No word yet on whether it will be streamed live. If it is, I’ll be watching.
LINK: The Art of the Tease.