Continuing an end-of-year Small Dog tradition, the following is a timeline of notable events for Apple Inc. in 2008.
It’s worth noting that while Apple’s market share continued to expand rapidly in 2008, the value of Apple’s shares (AAPL) took a beating. As of this writing, AAPL is down 56% for the year. It started at $193, and is trading at $85.50 today. At its lowest point, it was trading at $80.00 on November 20. The stock was strong mid-spring through the summer, but crashed along with the rest of the market in the autumn.
January 08 Apple announces Penryn Mac Pros and Xserves. “With 3.2 GHz 8-core Xeon processing, a 1600 MHz front side bus and 800 MHz memory, the new Mac Pro uses the fastest Intel Xeon architecture on the market.” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.
January 09 Warner, Paramount, Disney, Fox, Lions Gate to Join iTunes Rentals
January 15 At Macworld San Francisco, Apple announces several new products, including Time Capsule, iTunes movie rentals, AppleTV Take 2, MacBook Air, and iTunes 7.6. Apple also announces Phone Software Update & SDK Release date.
January 16 Microsoft launches Mac Office 2008
February 01 Microsoft Makes $44.6 Billion Bid to Acquire Yahoo
February 05 Apple Announces a 16GB iPhone and 32GB iPod touch
February 05 Canalys reports that iPhone has 28% of U.S. Smartphone Marketshare for Q4 2007.
February 09 Yahoo Says ‘No’ to Microsoft’s Bid
February 11 Mac OS X (Leopard) 10.5.2 Update Released
February 12 Apple releases Aperture 2.0
February 12 Apple releases Apple TV ‘Take 2’ software update. Apple TV owners can now rent movies without the use of a computer in standard and high definition formats.
February 26 Apple Releases Intel Penryn-Based MacBook Pros with Multitouch – MacBook Pro includes the latest NVIDIA graphics processors, now with up to 512MB of video memory,and Apple’s innovative Multi-Touch trackpad, first introduced in MacBook Air. Processor speeds up to a 2.6 GHz. The 17” model offers an optional LED screen.
February 26 Apple Releases New Penryn Based MacBooks with faster processors and larger hard drives.
March 06 Apple Releases iPhone SDK, featuring ActiveSync, Exchange, WPA2, Push Services.
April 03 Apple becomes #1 music retailer in U.S. Wal-Mart is second, Best Buy third and Amazon is fourth.
April 08 Apple (finally) ships Final Cut Server
May 01 Apple TV Update: Buy movies on iTunes the same day as the DVD is released, buy movies directly from Apple TV.
June 09 WWDC – .Mac becomes MoblieMe with an URL of Me.com, Apple Announces iPhone 3G, Mac OS X ‘Snow Leopard’ is announced.
July 09 iPhone 3G launch, App Store Launch, MobileMe launch
July 16 Apple sends apology letter, 30-Day extension to MobileMe customers for botched MobileMe roll-out.
August 18 Apple now provides 60 day extension to all MobileMe subscribers for botched MobileMe roll-out.
August 28 Steve Jobs obituary accidentally published by Bloomberg.
August 19 According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), Apple still tops the list as highest in customer satisfaction for personal computers.
September 09 Apple’s Let’s Rock presentation unveils new 4th Generation iPod Nano, 2nd Generation iPod Touch, 120GB iPod classic, iTunes 8 with HD TV shows, Grid View, Genius Playlists, NBC, refreshed iPod shuffles colors, new in-ear headphones
September 23 Adobe Unveils Creative Suite CS4, GPU Accelerated Photoshop
*October 14*In an event called “The Spotlight Turns to Notebooks”, Apple intros MacBooks and MacBook Pros with new unibody aluminum cases and an entirely new way of building notebooks from a single block of aluminum. These are touted as the industry’s greenest notebooks.
Beyond unibody enclosure, other features include-Mini DisplayPort for video out, improved NVIDIA graphics across the entire line, instant-on LED-backlit displays, and Glass Multi-Touch trackpad with new Multi-Touch gestures. The unibody MacBooks lose their FireWire port, but FireWire is retained in all MacBook Pros and a $999 white MacBook Apple touts as its entry-level model.
MacBook Airs Get Penryn processors, MacBooks and Pros Intel Montevina Core 2 Duo Processors. MacBook Pros processors now run up to 2.8GHz.
The 17” MacBook Pro retains the same appearance but now ships with high resolution 1920 × 1200 LED-backlit display and a larger 320GB hard drive, and an option for a 128GB SSD drive.
October 14 Apple introduces 24” LED Cinema Display with built-in iSight and innovative streamlined design. The only inputs MiniDisplay Port, making it compatible for new MacBook line.
October 24 Apple Publicly Opposes California Proposition 8 (Ban on Same Sex Marriage)
December 01 Simpsons Mock Apple with “Mapple” skit, video from the show goes viral and fills email inboxes around the world.
December 01 Apple offers free licensing of Mini DisplayPort Spec.
December 16 Apple announces that Steve Jobs will not give the 2009 Macworld keynote, and that Apple will not have a presence at future Macworld Conferences. Phil Schiller will instead give the Apple keynote. Speculation that Steve Jobs and Apple’s withdrawal has to do with Jobs’ health is shot down when it is revealed that Apple had decided months ago to discontinue its annual Macworld presence, as tradeshows had become a very minor part of Apple’s outreach efforts.
December 22 iPhone in Vermont – confirmed! And the year ends on a positive note!