As pointed out Wednesday by iPodNN, Apple celebrates two important birthdays this week. Safari, the company’s Web browser, and iTunes, the media management software that propelled the iPod and subsequent iTunes Store to success, were both introduced this week 10 and 12 years ago, respectively.
Safari was introduced by Apple on January 6 at the 2003 Macworld Expo in San Francisco, showing the public what an Apple-built Web browser could do and promising to free the masses from the use of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which was infamously the default browser in OS X at the time.
The browser went through several months of beta testing before its official release alongside OS X 10.3 Panther in October. Since its launch, the company has continued to develop and spread it to other platforms, including iOS and Windows, although some are not pleased with the changes introduced in the latest major revision for OS X.
iTunes began life as SoundJam MP in 1999, but the development team and software were acquired by Apple in 2000. After revising the software’s interface and renaming it iTunes, Apple showed it to the world on January 9, 2001 by releasing version 1.0.
iTunes has since grown to support video playback, podcasts, books, and the Apple iTunes Store, launched in 2003. It is now the central hub for media playback and management for hundreds of millions of iDevice users. Apple released a significant redesign of the software in November 2012 with version 11.
For everyone who uses either of these applications regularly, have a birthday cupcake in their honor this week.
Teaser graphic made with help from Shutterstock.