September 19, 2014: The iPhone undergoes its biggest upgrade — both figuratively and literally — since the original, with the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus handsets.
The iPhone 6 brings a new 4.7-inch form factor, while the iPhone 6 Plus boasts a massive 5.5-inch design. The previous-generation iPhone 5 measured only slightly taller than its 3.5-inch predecessors. But with the iPhone 6, Apple abandons that strategy for the first time to take on big-screen Android “phablets.”
September 10, 1984: Apple ships the Macintosh 512K, the first upgrade to the first-gen Macintosh 128K.
Coming less than eight months after the original Macintosh, the 512K Mac makes no sweeping changes to the computer’s form factor. Instead, the big upgrade is quadrupling the RAM. This leads Apple fans to refer to the computer as the “Fat Mac.”
September 4, 1997: The writing is on the wall for Apple’s Newton product line as Steve Jobs tells executives at the newly spun-off company not to bother moving into their new offices.
It’s quite the turnaround for the Newton division. Only months earlier, it was being portrayed as large enough to become its own company.
August 30, 2010: Just two years after opening its virtual doors, the iOS App Store passes a key milestone: one-quarter of a million apps for sale.
It’s a massive demonstration of success for a service Steve Jobs didn’t even initially want to offer.
Apple’s surge past a $2 trillion market cap this week underlines just how well CEO Tim Cook’s vision works for shareholders. But is this good news for Apple fans?
The first publicly traded U.S. company to hit this milestone, Apple has transformed from one of the world’s dynamic companies into one that can be, well, kind of boring. The strategy that fueled this unprecedented success makes it far less likely that we’ll seen an insanely innovative product coming out of Cupertino in the future.
The deal to bring legendary director Martin Scorsese’s future films to Apple TV+ sounds like a gift for movie fans who subscribe to the streaming service.
But signing Scorsese and other top filmmakers could turn out to be a shrewd and self-serving move that benefits Apple, too. Focusing on films crafted by the world’s top directors could differentiate the fledgling Apple TV+ from dominant rivals like Netflix. And it looks like Apple might be timing the market perfectly.
August 5, 1997: Apple gets into a standoff with Power Computing, a maker of Macintosh clones. It marks the beginning of the end for Apple’s mid-’90s strategy of licensing the Mac operating system.
“If the [Mac] platform goes closed, it is over,” predicts Power Computing CEO Joel J. Kocher of Apple’s strategy. “[It’s] total destruction. The kiss of death.” Of course, things don’t turn out exactly like that…
August 4, 2008: Steve Jobs owns up to mistakes in launching MobileMe, spinning Apple’s bungled cloud service rollout as a learning opportunity.
“It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store,” Jobs writes in an email to Apple employees. “We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.”
Despite pulling in record earnings last quarter, Apple reportedly asked the landlords of its U.K. retail outlets to cut their rent by a massive 50%, The Sunday Times reports.
The newspaper says Apple is also asking for a “rent-free period” as the COVID-19 pandemic plays out. In return, the company says it will extend its leases for a lengthy period — although some of the stores in question have several years left on their lease agreements.
July 31, 2012: The Daily, the world’s first iPad-only newspaper, lays off almost a third of its staff, signaling the demise of a bold publishing experiment.
The deep cuts — The Daily fired 50 of its 170 employees — affect mainly sports and editorial page staffers, although some production and design employees get the ax, too. The ominous move comes as News Corp places the iPad app “on watch” due to disappointing readership numbers.
