Apple: Year in Review

by , 10:20 AM EST, December 30th, 2005

Macworld's Jim Dalrymple has chronicled the major events and milestones for Apple in 2005. The review starts with Apple's record breaking profits, then moves on to the iPod, software, hardware, and more.

Apple spent most of the year breaking its own records with higher profits in every quarter except the second. Apple ended the year selling nearly 22.5 million iPods and 4.53 million Macs. The iPod, according to some analysts, reached iconic status. The Rokr cell phone with iTunes, however, did not.

Apple didn't live up to its claim that 2005 would be the year of HD, but Tiger fared well, as did Apple's venture into scientific markets. The introduction of Aperture left some questioning if Apple was taking on Adobe Photoshop, although Apple claims it isn't.

On the hardware front, Apple's decision to switch from the PowerPC processors it currently uses to Intel-based chips for future Macs was the announcement of the year. Apple is doing what it can to make the transition easy for developers, and the introduction of Rosetta will make the transition easier on consumer's pocketbooks. The Mac mini was the computer to talk about all year, but the introduction of the Power Mac G5 with two dual-core PowerPC CPUs was a welcome addition to the product lineup.

Apple found itself plagued with legal battles all year, just like most other companies. The company was sued over its FairPlay DRM technology, bad iPod batteries, scratched iPod nano screens, and disgruntled employees. It fired back with lawsuits against developers that posted pre-release copies of Tiger on file sharing Web sites, and Mac rumor Web sites that leaked information about unreleased products.

Marketshare for Apple rose, too, thanks to renewed interest in the Life Sciences, business, and Education markets. While Dell saw its worldwide shipments for the fourth quarter rise only 6.51 percent, Apple's jumped up 15.08 percent.