2012 was a very different year for Apple. For starters, it was Tim Cook’s first year as CEO. While much of Apple has remained the same, Cook has definitely shown that he is a different type of leader than his predecessor. Apple is evolving into something new.

Between four press events and the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Apple announced an unprecedented slew of new products in 2012. Every single major product was refreshed to some extent, which leaves even more speculation as to what Apple has up its sleeve for 2013.

There have been key executive firings and hirings, heated lawsuits, and scandals. In the midst of everything, Apple managed to become the most valuable company on earth.

While there are many big Apple moments from this past year, we’ve gathered what we think are the 10 most notable stories. Here they are:

Apple gadgets you buy in the future may have been assembled by machines as Apple’s biggest manufacturing partner, Foxconn, begins replacing its workers with robots. The move is expected to improve efficiency in Foxconn’s Chinese plants, as well as combat rising labor costs.

Foxconn has confirmed that a 23-year-old worker committed suicide this week by jumping from his apartment in the southwestern city of Chengdu. The worker only began his employment with Foxconn last month. Police are investigating the death.

After the FLA found wide scale violations at Apple’s main manufacturing plant, Foxconn, both Foxconn and Apple promised to fix the issues by 2013. Issues that were found include the amount of overtime worked, compensation workers receive for their overtime, and numerous health and safety risks. In what looks to be the first of changes, Foxconn and Apple will be raising workers’ wages in July.

The first reactions by human rights groups to the Fair Labor Association’s independent audit of Foxconn factory working conditions are in, and there is cautious optimism that the widescale abuse of Chinese factory workers may be on the cusp of coming to an end. But that’s only if the rest of the tech industry follows Apple’s lead.

We’ve read through the Fair Labor Association’s report on Foxconn’s facilities, and while the picture it paints of conditions is bleak, they’re not insurmountably awful, or even particularly Dickensian. Rather, these are issues that can be fixed… many through simple communication.

Here’s all the bad in the FLA’s report, and what Foxconn can do to fix things.

After being invited by Apple to perform an audit at Foxconn, the Fair Labor Association released its findings today in a report. The findings were a bit mixed, saying they found wide scale issues primarily around amount of overtime worked, compensation, and safety. Apple and Foxconn agreed to improve on the FLA’s findings by 2013.

Labor group Human Rights First has reacted this evening, saying that Apple and Foxconn’s changes will help reform supply chains as a whole and will be a turning point for the industry. But primarily, the changes will be “life-changing” for the workers.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has long said that “no one in our industry is driving improvements for workers the way Apple is today,” and to put the company’s money where its mouth was, Cupertino invited the Fair Labor Association to do a thorough audit of working conditions at Foxconn.

Now the results are in, and there’s good news and bad news.

The bad news is that the Fair Labor Association found wide scale violations of Chinese labor laws, including the amount of overtime worked, the compensation received for overtime, and numerous health and safety risks, as well as “crucial communication gaps that have led to a widespread sense of unsafe working conditions among workers.”

The good news? Apple and Foxconn are fully on board fixing the issues. That’s why they agreed to the audit, and that’s why they’re committing to being compliant with all of the FLA’s guidelines by 2013. Oh, and they’re going to hire a lot more staff and workers to help even the load.

With all the recent protests outside Apple stores, you might think this placard-carrying duo was taking the Cupertino company to task about labor in China.

Nope: it’s a publicity stunt for a play called Robot the Rock Opera. Members of the merry troupe of the Planet X Players descended on the Cherry Creek Mall store in Denver to promote the upcoming play.

Despite the fact that it was the day of the new iPad launch, they were allowed in and given the boot (albeit cordially) by Apple employees after handing out a few flyers about liberating Apple’s robot voice assistant Siri from “slavery.”

Cult of Mac talked to writer/director Seth Iniguez Bertoni about how services like Siri are leading to “digital servitude,” whether Siri considers the work fair labor and how the actors got that mesmerizing silver sheen.

Watchdog group SumOfUs has launched a new petition asking Apple to prove that workers at Foxconn factories in China weren’t subject to illegal overtime to make the iPad 3.

Specifically, they’re looking for Apple to turn over individual worker hours from November 2011-February 2012 to prove they’re not violating China’s labor laws which prohibit more than 36 hours of overtime per month.

Cult of Mac talked to SumOfUs founder Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman about what the group hopes to achieve with this latest petition, launched the morning of the iPad event as of this writing reached 41,500 of its 50,000 signature goal.