Minority Report: 12 months of Apple

From scads of new products to a Jobs health scare, it's been another exciting year for Apple. Seb Janacek clocks the highs and lows for the Mac maker.

If last year was an A on the report card for Apple, this year is perhaps a B - solid progress if not as spectacular. It's only once in a while you can release an industry-changing device after all.

Like 2007, the last 12 months have been very much about the iPhone - albeit with a number of significant additions.

The year saw Apple continue to build itself into an industry giant with record-breaking quarterly results for its Mac and iPhone businesses.

Walking on Air
In January, after the excesses of a festive period Apple immediately slimmed down with the launch of the ultra-thin MacBook Air - a laptop so thin you could cut a cake with it, which some people actually did.

As with many other Apple products, the laptop is a wonder of industrial design, featuring a thin enclosure but still managing to contain a 13-inch screen and a full-sized keyboard.

The biggest threat to the Air came from its own stable mates, the MacBook and MacBook Pro - even more so since the relaunch of both notebook ranges in October.

Rumours that the company could introduce a low-cost MacBook as an attempt to increase market share were scotched by the company when it released new designs for the range and its higher-spec Pro relative.

Same old, same old
A Q&A session by Steve Jobs after the October MacBook relaunch reiterated that the company was sticking to its winning formula of selling high-margin quality kit to the markets the company "chooses to serve".

Jobs stated the company didn't know how to create a $500 computer that wasn't a piece of junk and that Apple's DNA wouldn't allow them to do so. With Apple relaxing its approach to secrecy it was an interesting insight into the company and its future plans.

As Steve Jobs pointed out in a 2008 keynote, there are three parts to the company now: the Mac, its music business (comprising the iPod and iTunes business) and the iPhone.

3G iPhone debuts
Without doubt, 2008 was the year of the iPhone. Again.

Since its launch in 2007, the device has lit a fire under the entire mobile industry. Apple's smartphone was the talk of the town at the Mobile World Congress in February. It was suddenly a contender in the corporate market, which has eluded it for so long, as well has having a huge effect on the rest of the market.

For page 2 of this article click here