November 19, 2013: Apple gets final approval from the Cupertino City Council to proceed with building a massive second campus to house its growing army of workers.
Cupertino Mayor Orrin Mahoney’s simple message regarding Apple Campus 2? “Go for it.”
November 13, 2013: Apple and Samsung head back to court to determine how much the Korean company must pay for copying the iPhone.
Cupertino asks Samsung for $379 million in damages for ripping off key iPhone technical and design features. Apple arrives at that number based on lost profits, royalty rates and the $3.5 billion worth of copyright-infringing devices Samsung sold during the period in question.
November 11, 2015: Apple’s first iPad Pro goes on sale after months of speculation about the giant-size tablet. With its much larger screen, professional-oriented targeting and dreaded (optional) stylus, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro represents Apple CEO Tim Cook’s cleanest break yet from Steve Jobs’ vision for iOS devices.
And it turned out all the better for it!
November 3, 2010: Apple prepares to launch the Mac App Store, publicly accepting app submissions from registered developers — and kicking off a gold rush among coders.
After witnessing the enormous sums of money raked in by early entrants in the iOS App Store, developers flood Apple with new Mac apps.
November 2, 2012: The first-generation iPad mini goes on sale, shrinking both the size and the price tag of Apple’s groundbreaking tablet computer.
With a reduced screen size of 7.9 inches — instead of the then-standard 9.7 inches — the iPad mini is the fifth iPad to be released by Apple. Critics hail Apple’s most affordable iPad ever, although some people complain about its lack of a Retina display.
October 29, 2012: Scott Forstall, Apple’s senior vice president of iOS software, is ousted from the company after the disastrous Apple Maps launch.
Apple divvies up the roles previously handled by Forstall, who once seemed on a path to the top, among other high-level execs. Jony Ive assumes leadership of the Human Interface team. Craig Federighi becomes head of iOS software. Eddy Cue takes control of Maps and Siri. And Bob Mansfield “unretires” to lead a new technology group.
October 28, 2012: More than a year after Steve Jobs’ death, the luxury yacht he commissioned is finally shown off for the first time, launched from a shipyard in North Holland.
Called Venus, the distinctive-looking yacht was one of the big personal projects Jobs pursued in his last years. As he told biographer Walter Isaacson, “I have to keep going on it. If I don’t, it’s an admission that I’m about to die.”
Sadly, Jobs never lived to see the finished vessel.
October 18, 2010: Just six months after the iPad debuts, Steve Jobs reveals that Apple’s tablet already outsells the mighty Macintosh computer.
During the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, Jobs says Apple sold 4.19 million iPads during the previous three months, compared with 3.89 million Macs.
October 12, 2011: Apple launches iCloud, a service that lets users automatically and wirelessly store content and push it to their various devices.
iCloud’s arrival marks the end of Apple’s “digital hub” strategy — and ushers in an age of inter-device communication and non-localized files.
October 8, 2014: Apple says it is “surprised” after GT Advanced Technologies, the supplier rumored to be manufacturing ultra-strong sapphire glass displays for the new iPhone 6, says it will file for bankruptcy.
The announcement appears to mark the end of the road for sapphire glass iPhone screens, a highly anticipated upgrade that promised make devices more durable.
