May 15, 2001: Steve Jobs flips the script on the dreadful experience of computer shopping, unveiling an ambitious plan to open 25 innovative Apple stores across the United States.

The first two Apple stores, located at Tysons Corner in McLean, Virginia, and the Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California, are set to open later that week. But this new Apple initiative is about much more than just a couple of retail outlets. It’s a radical reinvention of tech retail that will change the way computers get sold.

May 14, 1992: Steve Jobs’ company NeXT runs into trouble as it loses a crucial deal with Businessland after the giant computer retailer closes its stores.

It comes at a time when NeXT’s luck is going from bad to worse. This is one of the lowest points in Jobs’ career — before everything starts to turn around again.

May 12, 2005: Longtime Apple frenemy Bill Gates tells a German newspaper that Apple may have hit it big with the iPod, but that its success isn’t going to last forever.

The reason? Mobile phones are going to steal the iPod’s market share. The good news for Gates is that he was right on the money. The bad news for Microsoft is that Apple cannibalized itself by making the iPhone. And Apple’s smartphone became even more successful than the iPod.

Editor’s note: We originally published this illustrated history of the iPod to celebrate the device’s 10th anniversary on Oct. 22, 2011 (and updated it a decade later). We republished it on May 10, 2022, when Apple finally pulled the plug on the iPod.

The iPod grew out of Steve Jobs’ digital hub strategy. Life was going digital. People were plugging all kinds of devices into their computers: digital cameras, camcorders, MP3 players.

The computer was the central device, the “digital hub,” that could be used to edit photos and movies or manage a large music library. Jobs tasked Apple’s programmers with making software for editing photos, movies and managing digital music. While they were doing this, they discovered that all the early MP3 players were horrible. Jobs asked his top hardware guy, Jon Rubinstein, to see if Apple could do better.

May 8, 1997: Apple launches the PowerBook 2400c laptop, a 4.4-pound “subnotebook” that’s the MacBook Air of its day.

The PowerBook 2400c predicts the rise of speedy, lightweight notebooks, while also paying tribute to Apple’s past. Its design echoes the original PowerBook 100. Even years later, it remains a cult favorite among many Mac users.

May 7, 2014: Katie Cotton, the fearsome, much-admired head of Apple’s worldwide publicity machine, steps down from her VP post after 18 years with the company.

During her stint at Apple, Cotton worked in lockstep with Steve Jobs and proved instrumental in controlling the company’s portrayal in the press. Her departure provides one more reminder that the Jobs era is over at Apple.

May 6, 1998: Steve Jobs unveils the iMac G3, a brightly colored, translucent computer that will help save Apple.

Ten months after Jobs’ new management team takes over, the iMac loudly announces that the days of Apple quietly fading into the background are over.

May 3, 1984: Apple marks the all-important first 100 days of Mac sales, signaling whether the product is a hit with customers.

The results outstrip even Steve Jobs’ most optimistic targets. Unfortunately, not everything is as positive as it seems following the successful Mac launch.

April 29, 2010: Steve Jobs pens “Thoughts on Flash,” an open letter to explain why, basically, Adobe Flash kind of sucks. The letter marks the beginning of the end for the once-omnipresent plugin that powered multimedia in internet browsers for years.

Following the devastatingly blunt broadside, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen hits back at Apple, arguing against Jobs’ complaints. But the Apple CEO has clearly made up his mind: iOS devices will never support Flash. The writing is on the wall.

April 24, 2015: It’s time for the official release of the Apple Watch, the wearable device Apple CEO Tim Cook describes as the “next chapter in Apple history.”

Fans, having endured a seven-month wait since the device’s unveiling at a keynote the previous September, can finally strap an Apple Watch onto their wrists. Behind the scenes, however, the Apple Watch launch is a moment long in the making.