Ahead of the 10th anniversary on April 28th, Apple has today posted a dedicated page on iTunes called “A Decade of iTunes”. Available here, the page consists of an interactive timeline with 10 tabs for 10 years, and two charts on the right side with top-selling songs and albums “based on worldwide data”.
As Apple writes:
Celebrate 10 years of iTunes — a decade marked by stunning musical and technological evolution. From historic iPod release to the debut of groundbreaking artists, our timeline captures key moments in our history. Plus, take a look back at the defining albums and songs that hit the top of the charts each year.
Key events are indeed listed in Apple’s timeline. From the introduction of the first iPod and the billionth song sold on February 23, 2006, to the iPad announcement in January 2010 and Justin Timberlake’s recent new worldwide record for album sales with The 20/20 Experience, it’s fun to click through the years and remember important events and releases of the iTunes Store’s first ten years.
The timeline can also be viewed from iOS devices (it’s currently featured on the iTunes Store’s front page), with a nice custom layout on the iPhone.
At its Q2 2013 earnings call yesterday, Apple said that iTunes’ solid media ecosystem helped them achieve more than $4 billion in revenue for iTunes, software, and services in the quarter.
While the Mac mini began its life as a low-end PowerPC G4 machine, current build-to-order models can meet or exceed stock-configuration iMacs. They’ve become smaller, more powerful, yet are still an excellent switcher machine for those who already own a monitor and keyboard. They also can function as a server or serve a variety of needs for homes and businesses.
In setting up a media server with my old MacBook earlier this week, I thought about getting a newer, faster Mac mini to do the job. My MacBook Pro has an internal SSD whilst the standard mini comes with a spinning drive, but on the other hand the new minis blow my old MBP’s performances out of the water and offer Thunderbolt, which is something I’d like to have on a media server looking forward. Plus, my MacBook’s internal SSD is only 128 GB, whereas a standard Mac mini has 500 GB of storage and can be easily extended with different, even multiple drives.
Maybe I’ll get a Mac mini someday. Thing is, I believe the Mac mini is the coolest machine Apple makes: not the most powerful or successful, just awesome to have around. It can be extended. It’s got minimal footprint but it’s packed with powerful internals. It’s extremely reliable, otherwise the good folks at Macminicolo wouldn’t have built a (terrific) business on it.
Today marks the third anniversary of the launch of the (iPhone) App Store which launched on July 10, 2008. It launched simultaneously with what was then called the iPhone OS 2.0 software (now dubbed iOS 2.0) and was subsequently followed by the release of the iPhone 3G the next day, which came with iOS 2.0 and thus the App Store pre-installed.
The availability of third-party applications and an ‘App Store’ on the iPhone was certainly one of the most demanded features of the iPhone after it was revealed and launched in 2007. Whilst it hasn’t been revealed when exactly Apple decided to open up the iPhone to third-party apps (or if they had always planned for it), Steve Jobs was quoted in the New York Times shortly after revealing the iPhone in January 2007, as saying:
We define everything that is on the phone. You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.
Since the launch of App Store, it has become one of the defining successes for the iPhone and Apple more broadly – becoming a cornerstone feature being used in a number of advertising campaigns. Most notable is the ‘There’s an App for that’ ad campaign which highlighted the wide array of apps available to consumers (jump the break to relive the first of those).
Over the past few months, the App Store has hit a number of milestones that reveals how successful it has been over the past three years. Just in the past week, Apple revealed that there had been 15 billion apps downloaded from the App Store. Recently it was also revealed that there are now over 500,000 apps available in the App Store (100,000 of which are iPad apps) – virtually a hundred-fold increase from the 500 apps that were available at the launch of the App Store in July of 2008. Apple has also been very keen to note at their WWDC conferences that they are paying out significant amounts of money to developers; at last count it was over $2.5 billion. The question is, where will the App Store be in a year from now, let-alone another three years? The pace at which it has grown is truly mind-boggling.
Today is June 24, 2011. Believe it or not, it has already been one year since the iPhone 4 went on sale across the US, UK, France, Germany and Japan to literally millions of people who eagerly waited in line to get their hands on the latest and greatest iPhone yet. The history of the iPhone 4 has been remarkable, controversial and fascinating, filled with prototype leaks, criminal investigations, amazing technology, scandals, mystical white unicorns, new carrier allegiances and more. Come along with me as we mark the one-year anniversary of the iPhone 4 with a walk down memory lane.
Apple didn’t openly celebrate the tenth anniversary of its retail stores except for using the occasion to role out iPads as an interactive “smart sign”. However it has been noticed that in the back-end of stores, Apple has sent a tenth anniversary poster. The poster is almost philosophical in its review of the past ten years of Apple stores, highlighting the successes, failures, trivial facts and lessons learnt.
Jump the break for a recreated version of the poster, or head to ifoAppleStore for a transcribed copy of the poster. Otherwise, here are some highlights that we thought were interesting:
We’ve learned that a 32’6” transparent glass box can stand tall even among the giants of the Manhattan skyline.That when glass becomes as iconic as the Fifth Avenue Cube, it can also become the fifth most photographed landmark in New York City.
We’ve also learned that getting these details perfect can feel like trying to move a mountain. Sometimes two. But in the end, the effort is worth it. Because steel, glass, and stone can combine to create truly unique and inspiring spaces.
We’ve learned that a visit to the Genius Bar can fix more than just computers. It can also restore a customer’s relationship with Apple
We’ve found that when we wear black T-shirts, we blend in. And when we wear too many colors it’s confusing. But blue shirts are just right. We’ve also learned that it takes precisely 4,253 stitches to embroider the Apple logo on those blue shirts. And we even figured out which direction the stitches should go in.
As beautiful and iconic as our stores may be, the people who create and staff those stores are what matters most. So on this 3,652nd day we say think you to very single one of you. We say thank you to thosewho were there on the first day, to those whose first day is today.
On May 19 2001, Apple opened the first of its many retail Apple Stores; the Tysons Corner and Glendale stores. Ten years on, Apple’s retail ambitions have proven incredibly successful with over 300 stores in more than 10 countries.Along the way there have been some stunning stores, including the Regent street store in London (also the largest), the glass cube Fifth Avenue store in New York, the Paris Carrousel du Louvre Store and Pundong store in Shanghai.
As always, Wikipedia has some in-depth history and facts about the Apple Stores, as does ifoAppleStore which has an awesome list of unique factoids – did you know that the Bondi store has trees inside the store or that the Regent Street store has the longest Genius Bar at 46 feet? There have also been rumors in the past few days that Apple is planning to launch Apple Stores 2.0 – a relaunch of the stores with a shift in focus to ‘Personal Setups’, revamp of the actual stores with larger displays and deployment of iPad 2s for signatures being the key rumored changes.
Jump the break for pictures of these and other stunning stores, as well as a video of Jobs introducing that first Tysons Corner store – and see how much they’ve changed since!
Update: Added some pictures of the Tysons Corner store as it was on launch day (click on them for larger size), the original style of Apple Stores.
Today, 35 years ago on April 1st 1976, Apple Computer was established by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne so that they could later sell their Apple I computer kit. Interestingly Wozniak, who hand built the Apple I decided to permanently leave the company in 1987 – but is still technically an employee and receives a paycheck.
The other, more unfamiliar founder, Ronald Wayne, assisted Jobs and Wozniak in drawing the first Apple logo (seen above), writing the manual for the Apple I and writing the original partnership agreement. He however decided to leave the partnership just two weeks later and declined Jobs’ attempts to recruit him back years later.
It’s been a truly fascinating 35 years for the company and over the past decade in particular it has transformed the technology industry with the iPod, OS X, exceptional design in all its hardware and of course the iPhone and iPad. Here at MacStories we can’t wait to see what the next year will see Apple bring, let alone the next 35 years. As always Wikipedia provides some great reading about the early years about Apple that I thoroughly recommend if you’re curious and what to read more about those early days of Apple.
Ten years ago today, on March 24th 2001, Apple released Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah. Now ten years on, OS X has evolved into what we know and love as being Snow Leopard, that latest major update to OS X.
Between the original, and rather buggy version of OS X, Cheetah and Snow Leopard now, we had 10.1 Puma (September 2001), 10.2 Jaguar (August 2002), 10.3 Panther (October 2003), 10.4 Tiger (April 2005) and 10.5 Leopard (October 2007). With just a few short months before the summer, we don’t have much longer to wait until OS X 10.7 Lion arrives and brings a convergence of traditional desktop OS design and iOS design together into one great operating system.
So Happy Birthday OS X! If you’re feeling nostalgic you might want to have a read of the Wikipedia page on OS X which gives a nice synopsis of the major feature additions each release brought and jump the break to watch Steve Jobs introduce OS X at the 2000 MacWorld.
