Apple's success, tragedy and trouble

IT WAS a year of highs and lows for Apple. A year that should have been remembered as extraordinarily successful for the firm – breaking its own sales records, posting massive profits and becoming the most valuable company in the world – will instead be overshadowed by the death of co-founder Steve Jobs.

Apple’s successes of the year were marked by two product launches: the unveiling of the iPad 2 in March and the iPhone 4S in October. Both were refined, more powerful versions of existing products. But consumers lapped them up, with the 4 million units of the iPhone 4S sold in the first weekend.

And there were financial highs too. In August, the company briefly overtook Exxon Mobil as the world’s most valuable company. Apple’s market cap reached $337.2 billion, (€259 billion) and in October, it reported record revenue and earnings.

While the hype for a new iPhone gathered pace, it was clear that all was not well with Jobs. In August, he announced he would be stepping down as chief executive, months after taking a medical leave of absence. Chief operating officer Tim Cook was already looking after the day-to-day running, with Jobs returning briefly to launch the iPad 2, and again in June for Apple’s developer conference, where iOS 5 and iCloud was unveiled.

“I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come,” he wrote in his resignation letter.

Jobs died on October 5th, a day after Cook unveiled the iPhone 4S, prompting an outpouring of grief and tributes by Apple fans.

The loss of Jobs was not the only low point for Apple in 2011. There were some PR nightmares the company would rather forget.

In April, it was revealed that the iPhone was storing some location data in an unencrypted file on the handset, which is backed up to iTunes. Although Apple claimed the phone was only maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and mobile phone towers around a user’s current location to help the iPhone calculate its location when requested, the damage was done. The firm later issued an update that reduced the size of the file cached on the handset, stopped it backing up to iTunes and deleted the cache when location services were turned off.

The controversial investigation of the loss of yet another iPhone prototype over the summer, prompted claims of Apple accompanying police officers to search a house in San Francisco. The man in question, Sergio Calderon, said he was unaware that it was an Apple employee he was allowing to search his home, rather than just police officers. Earlier this month, there was talk of legal action.

So what is ahead for Apple? The company is facing increasing competition in the mobile and tablet space from rival Google, and has recently lost a couple of crucial patent cases. It also remains to be seen how the loss of Jobs will affect the company. But one thing is certain: Apple won’t be relinquishing its market stranglehold without a fight.