TIAH: Steve Jobs - page 2

September 30, 2002: Apple introduces iSync, a tool that lets Mac users synchronize their address books and calendars with their cellphones, iPods and Palm OS-compatible handheld organizers via Bluetooth.

“iSync is the beginning of something really big,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs says in a press release announcing the iSync public beta. “With the push of a button, iSync synchronizes the address book and calendar on your Mac with those on your mobile phone.”

It represents a big leap forward in the ability of computers and mobile devices to talk with one another. And it hints at some of Apple’s later advances.

September 28, 1997: Apple debuts its iconic “Think Different” television commercial, aligning the troubled computer company with some of history’s most celebrated freethinking rebels.

The most famous tagline in Apple history, “Think Different” doesn’t just articulate how Cupertino differs from its competitors. It also highlights how Apple, under the leadership of CEO Steve Jobs, will forge a future far different from its floundering, money-losing days of the early 1990s.

September 26, 1997: In one of his first tasks after returning to Apple as interim CEO, Steve Jobs reveals the company’s massive quarterly loss of $161 million.

Giving investors the bad news is miserable, but things are about to change dramatically for Cupertino.

September 16, 1985 and 1997: Twice on this day, Steve Jobs makes significant moves with regard to his career at Apple. In 1985, he quits the company he co-founded. Then, a little more than a decade later, he officially rejoins Apple as its new interim CEO.

In terms of the emotions associated with those historic occasions, it’s hard to think of two more polarizing days in Jobs’ life.

September 9, 2009: Steve Jobs makes his public return to Apple after successful liver-transplant surgery.

Appearing onstage at Apple’s fall event, Jobs receives a standing ovation that lasts almost a minute. He then opens the keynote on an unusually personal note by discussing his health.

September 8, 2003: Apple reveals that the iTunes Music Store recently sold its 10 millionth song download. The tune in question? Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated.”

Come to think of it, “You fall and you crawl and you break and you take what you get and you turn it into [success]” describes Apple pretty well in the late ’90s and early 2000s.

September 7, 2005: Apple and Motorola launch the Rokr E1, the first Cupertino-sanctioned cellphone to run iTunes.

Even the high-profile demo goes wrong, and Apple CEO Steve Jobs is very unhappy with the results. The compromised device shows what an error it is to let an outside designer create a phone under the Apple banner. The company won’t make the same mistake twice.

September 2, 1985: Reports claim Steve Jobs is on the verge of setting up his own company to compete with Apple. The rumors fly after Jobs sells Apple stock holdings worth $21.43 million.

For anyone who thinks speculation about Apple’s future is an invention of the blog era, today’s “Today in Apple history” is a reminder that the tech rumor mill was alive and well in 1985.

August 29, 2001: During a meeting, Apple’s board of directors awards Steve Jobs new stock options that will become part of a stock-backdating scandal several years later.

When the matter eventually ends up in court, Apple’s former general counsel pays $2.2 million to settle charges that she backdated stock options for Jobs, herself and others — and created fake paperwork to hide this fact.

August 26, 1991: In their first joint interview, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates trade barbs and debate “the future of the PC” in Fortune magazine.

The spirited discussion marks 10 years since the first IBM PC shipped. The piece also looks at what the future holds for both men — described as the former “boy wonders of computing, now thirtysomething.”

August 24, 2011: With his health worsening, a cancer-stricken Steve Jobs steps down from his role leading Apple. Tim Cook assumes the role of Apple’s seventh CEO.

“I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know,” Jobs writes in his retirement letter to the Apple board. “Unfortunately that day has come.”

August 22, 2001: Apple takes home a technical Emmy for developing FireWire, the high-speed serial port that allows users to transfer data quickly between a Macintosh and another device, such as a digital camera.

“Apple enabled the desktop video revolution with its invention of FireWire,” says Jon Rubinstein, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, in a press release. FireWire plays a key role in Steve Jobs’ “digital hub” strategy at Apple. However, the technology’s origins go back much further than that.

August 8, 1997: At Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs introduces the world to Apple’s new slogan, “Think different.” The catchy marketing reassures fans that Apple is exiting its mid-1990s dark age and once again making products customers will love.

It’s the beginning of Apple’s most iconic advertising campaign since the original “1984” Macintosh ad.

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 for Apple…

July 27, 1955: Joanna Hoffman, who will join the original Macintosh and NeXT teams and become Steve Jobs’ first right-hand woman, is born in Poland.

Six months younger than Jobs, the marketing executive is one of the few people willing and able to stand up to the oftentimes-fierce Apple co-founder during the first part of his career.

July 22, 1997: Apple unveils Mac OS 8, its next-gen operating system. The first major operating system refresh for Macintosh since System 7’s release in 1991, it’s destined to become a big hit with users.

Mac OS 8 introduces easier surfing of the internet, a new three-dimensional look and other features. It gets great reviews — but arrives at a very challenging time for Apple.

July 21, 1999: The iBook, Apple’s colorful clamshell laptop that’s a hybrid of the iMac and the PowerBook, arrives and launches a Wi-Fi revolution.

Apple’s new AirPort networking card is the key component that delivers cable-free internet access to the masses for the first time.

July 13, 2006: Apple releases its first activity tracker, the Nike+iPod Sport Kit, which combines Cupertino’s popular music player with a smart pedometer.

The product marks Apple’s first step toward the kind of mobile health-tracking initiatives it will pursue in the following decade — most notably through its iOS Health app and the Apple Watch.

July 11, 2008: The iPhone 3G goes on sale. Expectations for the smartphone sequel run high, and Apple delivers with the addition of GPS, faster 3G data and a higher-quality build.

To make things even better, Apple’s second smartphone runs on a new mobile operating system. iPhone OS 2 introduces a better Mail app, turn-by-turn navigation and a little something called the App Store.

July 4, 1985: Steve Jobs visits Moscow for the first time, with the aim of selling Macs to the Russians.

During his two-day trip, Jobs lectures computer science students in the Soviet Union, attends a Fourth of July party at the American embassy and discusses opening a Mac factory in Russia. He also reportedly almost runs afoul of the KGB by praising assassinated Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky.

May 18, 2006: The world — and, more specifically, the Apple-watching press — gets its first glimpse of the swanky new Fifth Avenue Apple store in New York City.

Hidden behind a black plastic wrapper during development, that all changes a day before the store’s grand opening. Workers remove the covering to reveal a 32-foot glass cube adorned with a floating, white Apple logo. At 10 a.m., members of the press get an exclusive tour of the new venue.

May 11, 1998: As part of his mission to turn Apple around, Steve Jobs spells out the company’s strategy for the Mac operating system going forward.

The company will ship Mac OS 8.5 and the first customer release of an OS called Rhapsody that fall, he says at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California. The big news, however, is that Apple is hard at work creating a major new operating system called OS X.

April 28, 2003: Apple opens the iTunes Music Store, revolutionizing the music industry and digital distribution of content.

At a time when getting music online mostly means illegal downloads from pirate services like Napster, iTunes quickly proves that customers will pay for songs — provided the service is good enough.

April 25, 1990: Steve Jobs shuts down Pixar’s hardware division (yes, it used to have one!), ending production of the pricey Pixar Image Computer immediately.

Jobs sells the company’s hardware unit to Fremont, California-based imaging company Vicom Systems for a paltry $2 million.

The iPhone packed a lot into its first astonishing decade. Not only has the device itself evolved significantly since its promising-but-by-no-means-perfect beginnings, but it’s transformed Apple’s business — and many of our very lives — in the process.

All this week, Cult of Mac’s “iPhone Turns 10” series will look at the innovative device’s massive impact on worldwide culture. The iPhone, which launched on June 29, 2007, truly changed the world.

What iPhone milestones have passed since Steve Jobs introduced this stunning hybrid device, which combined a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device? Check out our handy guide to 10 years of iPhone history.