Apple achieved widespread success with its iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad products, which introduced innovations in mobile phones, portable music players and personal computersrespectively. In addition, the implementation of a store for the purchase of software applications represented a new business model. Touch screens had been invented and seen in mobile devices before, but Apple was the first to achieve mass market adoption of such a user interface that included particular pre-programmed touch gestures.
Delivering his keynote speech at the Macworld Expo on January 9, 2007, Jobs announced that Apple Computer, Inc. would from that point on be known as Apple Inc., because computers were no longer the main focus of the company, which had shifted its emphasis to mobile electronic devices. The event also saw the announcement of the iPhone and the Apple TV.The following day, Apple shares hit $97.80, an all-time high at that point. In May, Apple's share price passed the $100 mark.
In an article posted on Apple's website on February 6, 2007, Steve Jobs wrote that Apple would be willing to sell music on the iTunes Store without digital rights management (DRM) (which would allow tracks to be played on third-party players), if record labels would agree to drop the technology.On April 2, 2007, Apple and EMI jointly announced the removal of DRM technology from EMI's catalog in the iTunes Store, effective in May.Other record labels followed later that year.
In July of the following year, Apple launched the App Store to sell third-party applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch.Within a month, the store sold 60 million applications and brought in $1 million daily on average, with Jobs speculating that the App Store could become a billion-dollar business for Apple.Three months later, it was announced that Apple had become the third-largest mobile handset supplier in the world due to the popularity of the iPhone.
On December 16, 2008, Apple announced that after over 20 years of attending Macworld, 2009 would be the last year Apple would be attending the Macworld Expo, and that Phil Schiller would deliver the 2009 keynote in lieu of the expected Jobs.Almost exactly one month later, on January 14, 2009, an internal Apple memo from Jobs announced that he would be taking a six-month leave of absence, until the end of June 2009, to allow him to better focus on his health and to allow the company to better focus on its products without having the rampant media speculating about his health.Despite Jobs' absence, Apple recorded its best non-holiday quarter (Q1 FY 2009) during the recession with a revenue of $8.16 billion and a profit of $1.21 billion.
After years of speculation and multiple rumored "leaks" Apple announced a large screen, tablet-like media device known as the iPad on January 27, 2010. The iPad runs the same touch based operating system that the iPhone uses and many of the same iPhone apps are compatible with the iPad. This gave the iPad a large app catalog on launch even with very little development time before the release. Later that year on April 3, 2010, the iPad was launched in the US and sold more than 300,000 units on that day and reaching 500,000 by the end of the first week.In May of the same year, Apple's market cap exceeded that of competitor Microsoft for the first time since 1989.
Apple released the fourth generation iPhone, which introduced video calling, multitasking, and a new uninsulated stainless steel design, which acts as the phone's antenna. Because of this antenna implementation, some iPhone 4 users reported a reduction in signal strength when the phone is held in specific ways. After a large amount of media coverage including mainstream news organizations, Apple held a press conference where they offered buyers a free rubber 'bumper' case, which had been proven to eliminate the signal reduction issue. Later that year Apple again refreshed its iPod line of MP3 players which introduced a multi-touch iPod Nano, iPod Touch with FaceTime, and iPod Shuffle with buttons which brought back the buttons of earlier generations.
In October 2010, Apple shares hit an all-time high, eclipsing $300.Additionally, on October 20, Apple updated their MacBook Air laptop, iLife suite of applications, and unveiled Mac OS X Lion, the latest installment in their Mac OS X operating system.On January 6, 2011, the company opened their Mac App Store, a digital software distribution platform, similar to the existing iOS App Store.Apple was featured in the documentary Something Ventured which premiered in 2011.
