The Apple Beat: Apple’s Year in Review for 2015

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla 

If I’ve learned anything about Apple in 2015, is that it is no longer as predictable as it used to be and the old established norms no longer hold water. 

2015 was a huge one of for Apple in various areas. The company released its first new major product category with the Apple Watch, it also enjoyed an unprecedented year of product releases as well as an ever expanding focus on operating systems, ecosystems, music services and mobile payments.

What struck me most about Apple in 2015 is that it seems to have shifted from being conservative in its product announcements to being more like the multi-billion-dollar company it actually is. This means taking bigger risks with new product categories, filling-in empty spots between existing product sizes and models plus growing its various ecosystems and services.

Apple Watch 

Apple Watch was no doubt the big story for 2015. While a latecomer in the wearables game, the Watch was teased, shown off and eventually launched in grand fashion. The Apple Watch was a huge undertaking for Apple and crossed over beyond consumer technology and health tracking into the realms of timepieces and even the fashion industry.

Sales figures for Apple Watch remain a mystery, but many analysts have guessed that it has already become the best-selling and most successful wearable device to date, specially considering that Apple managed to quickly iterate the capabilities of Apple Watch with watchOS 2 a mere few months after the device shipped.

Apple Music

While launching a new music streaming service during the yearly WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) seemed a bit out of place, the timing for Apple Music was right. While it enters a field that’s already hotly contested, Apple Music brought a lot of Apple’s clout in the industry to create a trifecta service that hinges on iTunes, adds a 24-hour streaming radio and on demand streaming service with 30 million songs.

Apple Music has already flexed its muscles and has backed various musical exclusives, the latest being Taylor Swift’s live concert video, which is ironic considering Taylor Swift was outspoken against Apple Music not paying musicians during the initial trial period. A mistake Apple quickly corrected publicly, which showed that a giant company like Apple still has the nimbleness to turn things around quickly.

What’s next for Apple Music? Many are hoping for a separation from iTunes, which has grown into a dated and convoluted application that’s a holdout from the heyday of iTunes and the iPod. There’s also a possibility that we will see high resolution audio being made available to Apple Music subscribers, which would push the service over the top of most competitors.

iPhone remains triumphant 

Because Apple has offered the iPhone 6 in two sizes and because it has the best app ecosystem, most impressive camera, seamless integration with iCloud and features free FaceTime and Messages apps, the popularity of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S plus soared in 2015.

This is remarkable for a number of reasons. The iPhone 6S isn’t an overhaul of the iPhone 6 but some would say it is an incremental upgrade. But everything about the iPhone 6S seems to have been changed. From the thicker body and stronger glass (to defy bending attempts), 3D Touch functionality as well as the 12-megapixel camera which also ushered in various new features including the ability to shoot (and edit) 4K video.

iOS 9 has also expanded a lot of functionality for the iPhone 6, most impressive was adding an hour of battery life simply by tweaking the code to be more efficient on the hardware it runs. 2016 is expected to be huge as iPhone 7 and various variants of Apple’s next flagship smartphone are expected to come to market with an all new look, feel and colours. 

iPad diversifies

iPad sales seemed to have plateaued because unlike the iPhone, iPads aren’t the types of products that users feel the need to change or replace on a yearly basis. Apple didn’t revise last year’s iPad Air 2, which still retains the top spot in its category and gets a fresh new set of multitasking, multi window and picture-in-picture features thanks to iOS 9.

Apple released the iPad mini 4, which brings all the power and capabilities of the iPad Air 2 to a smaller form factor.

iPad Pro was the biggest story in tablets for Apple. An attempt to define a place in the growing 2-in-1 tablet market, iPad Pro also opened up possibilities for artists and enterprise users with powerful specs, a large 12.9 inch display and the amazing Apple Pencil. While iOS 9 still falls short of delivering a comparable desktop user experience to OS X, the apps that are pushing the iPad Pro forward are slowly emerging.

Year of the Notebooks

Mac sales have never been better and this is mostly because of Apple’s portables. The MacBook Air line and the MacBook Pro line are very popular and have made an impact in various segments including education and the enterprise as well as being the go to portables for creative content creators.

The arrival of the new 12-inch Retina MacBook opened up a new niche for Apple and the device, which only has one USB Type-C port, is one of the most future facing devices to come out from Apple in a long time. The new MacBook also ushered in Force Touch, a feature that’s on the Apple Watch and the iPhone as 3D Touch. This new form of user interface adds depth to the computing experience and manages to make controls and settings even easier to access merely by levels of touch.

The desktop Macs also received some love in 2015. There are now 21-inch and 27-inch 4K and 5K resolution iMacs that have placed ultra HD resolution at the disposal of video editors, photographers, creative people at a fraction of the cost of a 4K TV. 

The Mac mini and the Mac Pro didn’t get any dramatic makeovers, which keeps us hopeful that Apple will release new versions in 2016. While the iPod line has lingered and maintained the same specs and features for some time now, we welcomed the arrival of a new 128GB iPod Touch that featured upgraded processor, camera and specs that make it ideal for accessing Apple Music. 

Predictions for 2016

Apple is making more products than ever before. Aside from iOS devices and Macs, there are a whole lot of peripherals, cases, accessories, docks and now even battery cases. The company also has multiple ecosystems at play. iOS is the key behind iPhone, iPad and iPod touch but now has various sub-systems such as watchOS for Apple Watch, tvOS for Apple TV and then there’s HomeKit, HealthKit, CarPlay which fork the range of apps and experiences even further.

Managing all these developer frameworks, ecosystems, app stores and partnerships is a gargantuan task but one that now falls under Phil Schiller to unify.

Apple Watch will be an intriguing proposition. Will Apple introduce a second version (in various editions, no doubt), or will they refine what existing Apple Watch models can do with new software upgrades? I hope for the latter.

We know that Apple Retail Stores are going to get a huge makeover, to highlight key products and probably dial back on others that aren’t selling well or that have less demand. Now that Apple is actively creating accessories for most of its products (taking a slice of a large accessory ecosystem pie), I expect to see more premium priced Apple cases, docks, pencils and the like come to market.

If I’ve learned anything about Apple in 2015, is that it is no longer as predictable as it used to be and the old established norms no longer hold water. Apple can spring a new product launch anytime in the year, it can make WWDC a kickoff point for new services and new hardware, it can launch a massive array of products in one enormous event in September, instead of two, separate iPhone and iPad focused events in September and October.

Even old-time Apple watchers have no clue what is going to happen next and when, which makes Apple and its products and services, even more exciting to cover.