2015 was a big year for Apple. But when you're a company the size of Apple, it's hard not for every year to be big. In any event, here's my take on the five biggest Apple-related stories of 2015.
The Apple Watch arrives
Apple announced the Apple Watch in September of 2014, so it entered the year with huge expectations about how well the watch would do. The device arrived in April, and supplies of the device and its accessories were severely constrained for several months. You could walk into an Apple retail store and try one on, but couldn't buy one.
Over the summer, supply constraints eased and Apple announced the first major software update for the device, watchOS 2, which was released in the fall.
Due to the way Apple's public financial disclosures are structured, we don't have any idea how well the Apple Watch has sold. But according to analysts, it is by far the best selling smart watch, far outdistancing the Android Wear market. Is that enough to make it a success? It will probably take another year before we know for sure.
Apple Music debuts
When Apple bought Beats in 2014, it was clear that the company would use its fledgling Beats Music service as the basis for an entry into the music-subscription-service market. The rebranded and modified service, dubbed Apple Music, launched at the end of June.
Apple's iTunes service essentially created a legal digital music market, and was wildly successful, aided by the success of the iPod. But as subscription services have become more popular, iTunes started looking like a bit of a cul de sac. With Apple Music, the company is in the game--though by jamming all of its different music services into a single app (Music on iOS, iTunes on the Mac), the user experience has been more complicated than the simplicity of services such as Spotify.
Apple's power as a platform owner gives it an advantage--the Music app is on every iPhone--but the existing players in the market have a lot of loyal customers. There's a lot to play for here, and Apple is presumably taking the long view with Apple Music. But at the very least, 2015 was the year that Apple embraced music subscriptions for the first time.
The new MacBook suggests the port of the future
Apple's new 12-inch MacBook laptop was notable for being remarkably thin and light, with a high-resolution Retina screen, a thin keyboard with very little key travel, and an underpowered Intel Core M processor. But the most interesting thing about it was its peculiar port configuration--a single USB-C port. No standard USB, no Thunderbolt, and no separate power port.
That set of decisions is very Apple, and many users swear by the device, but it's undeniably incompatible with existing peripherals, unless you've got an adapter or a hub. The MacBook signals a transition for Apple (and perhaps the entire PC industry) from old-style USB, though to date it's the only Apple laptop to feature a USB-C port.
However, another announcement made this year may end up looming just as large for the computer industry. In June Intel announced that the newest iteration of its Thunderbolt technology would also use the USB-C port, and emulate USB-C. If Apple were to embrace Thunderbolt 3, its devices would combine the high speeds and versatility of Thunderbolt with the broad compatibility of the USB standard.
With Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C, 2015 might have been the year Apple found its peripheral port of the future.
The iPad gets some attention
Critics will point to flat iPad sales as a sign that Apple's tablet business is in trouble. And while the lack of growth is disturbing, at $23 billion in annual revenue and 231 million iPads sold in the last year, the iPad's still a pretty great business. It's just not the iPhone.
2015 was the year that Apple showed the iPad some love. Several key features of iOS 9, the latest version of the operating system that drives both the iPad and iPhone, were specifically designed for the iPad. (In past years, the iPhone has been the focus of most of Apple's feature improvements, with the iPad seemingly along for the ride.) With iOS 9, the iPad gained several forms of multitasking, enhanced support for external keyboards, and even trackpad emulation on its software keyboard.
But the biggest iPad news, figuratively and literally, was the release of the iPad Pro this fall. This 12.9-inch tablet is Apple's restatement that it believes the iPad is a device capable of doing serious work. In addition to the iPad Pro, it added a new Smart Connector peripheral port used by its new slim Smart Keyboard. And the Apple Pencil marks the first time Apple has made any real acknowledgement of many users' desire to use some sort of stylus on the iPad.
After years of favoring the iPhone, there's a lot more work for Apple to do on the iPad, but 2015 was the year where Apple seemed to realized it needed to make a greater effort with the iPad, and it showed.
The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus are released
Every year Apple releases new iPhones. This year's models had the same styling as last year's, but featured a big processor upgrade, the new 3D Touch interaction model (which still isn't being adopted by enough apps, by the way), and improved cameras with 4K video support.
Those upgrades were good, but that's not the reason this release makes my list. It's because the iPhone is so huge, such a mammoth product--it accounts for two-thirds of Apple's revenue--that the release of a new iPhone model is always the most important thing to happen in the Apple world in any given year.
