Best Apple devices Ever: How the iPhone maker became what it is today!

1.

Starting from the beginning, Apple came up with its first commercial computer, the Apple I, in the market, however the computer failed miserably due to its high price and limited software titles. The company then worked day and night, and just 12 months after the launch of Apple 1 came up with the Apple II. It was the company's first computer with coloured graphics, had eight slots including memory slot, graphics and supported printer and a floppy drive. In addition, the computer bundled two gaming paddles. Apple II became a hit soon after it got launched, and was the fastest selling computers of its time. Despite carrying a price tag of Rs $1,298, over 300,000 units of the device got sold, generated Apple Computer $79 million in revenue during 1979.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

2.

Though the Apple II became quite successful, the Apple III couldn't pick up in the market and proved disastrous for the company. In 1984, Apple's then CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the Apple Macintosh, now known as Mac, in a very fancy and impressive packaging. The Mac took the personal computing revolution to a new level, for it was designed brilliantly and came with a monitor, keyboard and a mouse. It is also known for its exceptional graphical user interface. The Mac was priced for $2,495. Later, the company launched its second gen product, dubbed Mac 512K.

3.

Once Jobs was ousted from Apple, the company produced quite some unsuccessful products. After Jobs returned, things started changing in 1998, when the company launched the iMac series of computers. Apple came up with an all-in-one personal computer, called the iMac 3G, which came with a monitor and CPU in one system. The best about the computer was its see through design which let users see the inside of the computer. Moreover, it was the first computer to feature USB ports as a standard.

Apple first launched the iMac 3G in Bondi blue, and soon after noticing its high demand, it released thirteen other color modes of the computer. It was priced for $1,299 in May 1998. With this computer, Apple was also targeting youth. The system included dual headphone jacks and built-in stereo speakers. This was the product that brought Jonathan Ive, Apple's vice president of industrial design, into limelight.

4.

Apple created ripples in the market with its iTunes software, which essentially was a digital jukebox kind of a service for music junkies, in January 2001. The iTunes became a huge success in no time and turned the fortune of the company around forever. It is considered to be another biggest ever innovation by Apple. The service was originally launched to store a user's music files in one place, the software got much more features with updates. It could be used burn CDs and buy music on MP3s and albums, and movies, TV shows, books, and other forms of content straight from the platform.

5.

After the iTunes proved successful for the company, it launched another innovative product, named the iPod in October 2001. The original iPod model came with a click wheel that was touch-sensitive and let users scroll through their music library with ease. It had storage space of 5/10GB, priced for $399/499 respectively. The company described it as having thousand songs in your pocket. The first iPods went on sale in November, 2001. Later, Apple launched advanced versions of the iPod, including the iPod Mini, iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle and iPod Touch, with more features and higher storage.

6.

It was in January 2007, that Apple introduced its first iPhone, and rest is history! The company broke the market with a new innovation, called iPhone, which set a new standard in thesmartphone industry. The phone was an epitome of design and functionality for/at that point of time.
Apple took the wraps off the first iPhone at Macworld 2007, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Like all the Apple products, this was also pretty expensive. Apple announced a 4GB version and an 8GB version for $499 and $599, respectively. Apple sold 6.1 million units of the phone in the first five quarters. Later, the company slashed the price of the phone by $200.

The iPhone opened windows to a new world of smartphones. Since then, 50% of Apple's revenue is generated through iPhones alone.

7.

In April 2010, Apple took the tablet industry with its iPad. The Apple iPad brought a new trend in the tablet market which was ailing and was unsuccessful until then. The company shipped 12.9 million iPads as of Dec. 10, 2010, including 300,000 units that got sold the first day of sale itself.
However, it was the iPad Air 2 that simply broke all barriers and took the tablet market to another level. It was the company's thinnest and lightest iPad back then, measuring in at just 6.1mm thick and weighing at 0.96 pounds. It featured a brilliant display, called Retina display screen carrying 3.1 million pixels, making way to 264 pixels per inch. The tablet also boasted Touch ID fingerprint scanner technology.

8.

After iPhone became a big hit for the company, Apple kept introducing new and updated models of its phone every year. Till date, Apple iPhone is the most coveted and anticipated product of the year. Apple, being known for its innovation, came up with yet another major product in 2001. The company announced its personal assistant named Siri with the iPhone 4s.

9.

The Apple iPhone 5S brought a complete overhaul of the hardware of iPhone. It bridged the gap between phones and PC by boasting a powerful hardware that made it a beast among its rivals. It was the first phone to include a 64-bit chip, the A7, which gave users more power to do things that they could do on a PC. Thanks to the internals, the phone was incredibly fast, that even one of the Qualcomm (QCOM) employees mentioned that the A7 chip took the mobile industry by surprise and has set new standards for the industry.

The iPhone 5S also featured TouchID, which was fingerprint scanner based security feature that led to Apple incorporating Apple Pay mobile payments platform in the later version of the iPhones.

10.

Apple entered the smart wearable segment with the Apple Watch that got launched in 2015. The Apple Watch was the company's first new product since the iPad in 2010. It is a fitness and health tracking device with smart features, a new interface, and several editions. It received a bag full of mixed reactions, because its rivals already launched competitive smartwearable to the market. Despite garnering much criticism, the Watch became one of the most talked about products in history.

The Apple Watch was launched for price starting at $349 for the Sport model, going up to $17,000 for the Apple Watch Edition that boasted 18-karat gold.