Minority Report: 12 months that changed Apple

COMMENT

Few would dispute that Apple has had a remarkable year. But Seb Janacek goes further. He predicts that in 10 years people will look back at 2007 as a seminal year in the company's history.

For Apple, 2007 has been 12 months punctuated by major product announcements, scares for investors and a host of issues, ranging from environmental to rights-free music and embarrassing glitches.

The biggest story of the year, not just for Apple but for the industry as a whole, was undoubtedly the launch of the iPhone.

It dominated column inches for the five months between its January announcement and US launch in late June. Not only has the iPhone forced other handset manufacturers to go back to the drawing board, it's also torn up the standard rules of engagement between handset makers and telecoms carriers.

In the UK, it's alleged that all the major telecoms firms were falling over themselves to win the iPhone crown. The balance of power has shifted.

Ultimately, it's the user interface that has garnered the most attention and rightly so. The lack of buttons and reliance on soft interface and gestures are revolutionary, but perhaps more impressive than that is the way the link between core functions - phone, iPod, web browsers - are seamless. Go try one, words don't do it justice. Successful device convergence in action.

Just 74 days after its US launch, Apple announced it had sold a million iPhones. Not bad going for a company with no track record in mobile phone devices.

Apple's change of name in January from Apple Computer to Apple Inc also highlighted the company's growing focus on product families other than Macs.

This change of name had already happened in its marketing years ago but Apple was underlining its rise as a major player in markets other than computing: personal technology, media distribution and telecoms.

In the first of two treatises he'd publish during the year, Jobs called for an end for DRM protection on digital music. A bold gamble given that the success of the iTunes Store and iPod sales was built on the closed platform.

A month or so later, in a move that Jobs described as the "next big step forward in the digital music revolution", EMI and Apple made a joint announcement that the label would start selling DRM-free tracks on the iTunes Store.

The second Jobs treatise was on green computing and was written in response to the ongoing Greenpeace campaign, some say opportunist, which alleged that Apple was the worst offender in a list of environmentally unfriendly computer manufacturers.

Sceptics might suggest that Apple was the focus of the Greenpeace marketing because of its brand. After all, no one would bat an eyelid if Lenovo or Acer was declared the worst-performing computer manufacturer. But with the agenda setting and hip Apple as the focus of its ire, the campaign demanded attention.

Either way, the campaign worked. CEO Steve Jobs wrote a missive on green computing. In it he outlined how Apple was improving its manufacturing process to become more environmentally friendly. And where Apple leads others follow. A result for Greenpeace, and for the planet, one supposes.

In April, Apple was also forced to announce delays to the delivery of Leopard, its next iteration of the Mac OS X operating system. The company said it had to shift engineers away from OS development onto the iPhone to ensure the device would be ready for its 29 June release date.

The B team delivered a system that, while far quicker and more elegant than previous versions of the already mature OS X, was buggier than any other release in recent memory. Worse yet, a small number of upgrading users complained of experiencing the Blue Screen of Death during the upgrade process.

The cause was the attributed to the presence of third-party system enhancers. Nevertheless, it was a minor embarrassment for Apple given the jibes it has pointed in Redmond's direction over the years.

There were others sour notes to the year, notably the ongoing investigation into Steve Jobs over stock options. Despite being exonerated of any wrong-doing by the Apple board, the investigation continues, terrifying investors and fans alike.

Some early iPhone owners were outraged when Apple dropped the price of the device by $200 after just a couple of months. Meanwhile, users who hacked their iPhones to run them on networks other than AT&T found they were bricked and inactive after a firmware update. Apple left no doubt over their determination to ensure the device remained linked to its chosen telecoms partners. Naturally, there are lawsuits from irate users pending.

There were two other key events that didn't make as many headlines as the product launches.

The first was the announcement, starting with the iPhone, a version of OS X would be at the centre of all its devices. Apple is clearly developing a common platform for all its hardware, although the version of OS X is clearly going to be different from that which powers an iPod Touch or the Apple TV.

The second was an event that barely registered on the radars of any newsrooms. In late October, Apple's market cap passed that of IBM's for the first time in its history. A momentous event for the company and worth juxtaposing with the infamous 1984 Macintosh commercial, which pitted a lithe Apple against a totalitarian Big Blue.

And so to the present. Apple has proved many wrong, this writer included, on its quest to grow its market share. The MacBook and MacBook Pro models have been a mainstay in the company's Mac sales in recent years. The company has bucked the overall trend in the PC market by reporting sales growth over three times more than the market baseline.

For so many years, Apple seemed to be teetering on the brink of ruin. Now, as far as some Wall Street analysts are concerned, the sky is the limit.

Almost 12 months since the building hosting the 2007 Macworld shook with rapturous applause at the unveiling of the iPhone, the telecoms industry is still trying to work out what the company's arrival in their backyard fully signifies.

So what does 2008 hold for Apple?

For starters, an ultra-thin MacBook Pro, which bloggers and analysts predict will make an appearance at the January Macworld event. The device is supposedly targeted at the business and power-user markets and features a similar but slimmer MacBook Pro case with no optical drive and flash memory rather than a hard drive.

Later in the year, a 3G iPhone is a no-brainer. Detractors have been bitching about the lack of 3G access on the device. Expect it in the summer along with higher capacity devices. AT&T executives have already made it clear the device is on the way.

Of equal importance are the company's plans to open the iPhone up to third-party developers. The vast Apple developer community was hugely disappointed in June when Jobs said the company would not be releasing a software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone.

A large number of web 2.0 web apps have been developed for the iPhone's Safari web browser but developers wanted a SDK. However, in October, Apple finally pledged they'd get one in February 2008. There will be legions of developers itching to release applications for the iPhone and its close cousin the iPod Touch.

And finally the Apple TV is currently a seriously underpowered device. Expect some major announcements around the company's content offering and Apple TV product.

Love it or loathe it, Apple's star continues to rise. Better still in the run-up to Christmas the company's fans can look forward to an even more diverse range of new goodies in 2008, given the company now operates in four major markets.

First stop in 2008 will be Macworld in San Francisco on 14-18 January. Until then, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.