Written By: Artika Shah
1. Steve Jobs Death
The most touching and important news of 2011 and for years to come. “We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today,” stated, Apple Inc’s board of directors. Visionary co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs expired at the age of 56 on October 5 which is a major loss for the technology industry. Mr. Jobs was one of the world’s great entrepreneurs who gave the world the iPod, the iPad and the iPhone. He resigned as the CEO of Apple in August and handed over the reins to the current chief executive Tim Cook. The Silicon Valley Icon had been battling cancer and other health issues for years and also had a rare form of pancreatic cancer.
2. Steve Jobs quits Apple
The news of Steve Jobs resignation announced on Aug 24 hugely impacted the Technology and the stock world. The shares slipped as much as 7% in after-hours trading. Apple’s ailing chief executive Jobs officially tendered his resignation and recommended chief operating officer Tim Cook as his successor. Mr. Jobs said, “I have always said if there ever come a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first one to let you know.” Mr. Jobs said in his resignation letter, “Unfortunately, that day has come. ”
3. Launch of iPad 2
On March 2, Apple introduced iPad 2, the next generation of its magical device for browsing the web, reading and sending email, enjoying photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games and reading books. The then CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs was of the view, that while others have been scrambling to copy the first generation iPad, Apple is launching iPad 2 which moves the bar far ahead of the competition and willlikely cause them to go back to the drawing boards yet again. iPad 2 is available in black or white, features models that run on AT&T’s and Verizon’s 3G networks. The iPad2 with Wi-Fi was made available on March 11 for a retail price of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model, $699 (US) for the 64GB model.
4. Launch of Amazon’s new tablet Kindle Fire 4.
The world’s largest online retailer, Amazon.com Inc unveiled its Android-based tablet with a color touch screen on September 28. This is the first Kindle without an EInk display which costs $199 and has a 7-inch IPS display. The Kindle fire is a 7 tablet that brings together Amazon’s various digital media offerings like streaming video, Kindle books and Amazon MP3- in a dual core device and most importantly it runs on a cloud called Amazon silk. The company also debuted three new Kindle devices namely, the Kindle Touch wifi for $99, Kindle Touch 3G for $149, and a basic (non-touch) Kindle for $79.
5. Super charging Android: Google bought Motorola Mobility
Search giant Google Inc announced in August that it bought the cell phone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc for for a total of about $12.5 billion, in what may be termed as one of the biggest deals in the tech world. The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a dedicated Android partner, will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing.
6. Sony makes it official: PlayStation Network hacked
“We have been hacked,” stated Sony blaming external intrusion for PlayStation Network outage. After four days of disruption, Sony admitted that outside are hackers were responsible for a major PlayStation network outage. The outage, which began on Wednesday in the month of April, affected more than 70 million gamers worldwide, who used the network to play videogames against friends online, stream movies and shop. Sony said it had shut the network down voluntarily in order to conduct a thorough investigation and verify the smooth and secure operation of its network services going forward.
7. Launch of Apple iPhone 4S
Apple announced the launch of all new iPhone 4S model at an event held in Cupertino, USA in October. It did not announce the launch of the much awaited iPhone 5 which disappointed millions of Apple fans across the world and the ones who were waiting to upgrade from the current iPhone 4 but Apple delighted its fans by introducing Voice intelligent system ‘Siri, ‘ who calls herself as your personal assistant. Apple fans and tech geeks are all gushing over her and she deserves every bit of attention she’s getting.
8. Search giant reveals mobile payment system: Google Wallet
At search giant Google’s media event May 26, the company launched the long-rumored and long-awaited Google Wallet, its mobile payment system at its NYC Headquarters. Google Wallet is a mobile application for mobile devices running its Android operating system.
9. RIM faces lawsuits over blackberry outage
Blackberry customers in the U.S. and Canada filed a suit against Research in Motion or RIM over the worldwide outage which left millions without instant messaging, email and net access in October. The lawsuit claimed that RIM was responsible for Blackberry users’ loss of email, BB and internet. The outage, caused by a system failure and compounded by the failure of its back-up system started on October 10 and lasted 4 days.
10. Apple posts record quarter on sales of 20 million iPhone, 9 million iPads in third quarter 9.
Apple announced record revenue and profits in the third fiscal quarter of 2011, largely ruled by sales of over 20 million iPhones and over 9 million iPads. The company reported a quarterly net profit of $7.31 billion and its revenue stood at $28.57 billion, up 82% year-over-year. Apple sold 20.34 million iPhones, a 142% increase over last year’s third quarter.
