Enterprise Mobility: Apple's 2011 Saw New iPhone, iPad, Mac OS X, Steve Jobs' Death
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Apple's 2011 saw the expected release of a new iPad and iPhone, both of which helped the company fend off more robust challenges from Google Android and a host of new competitors. Even as Apple gained strength and prominence, however, it faced the illness and death of co-founder CEO Steve Jobs. Many of Apple's releases were widely anticipated. In January, it announced the iPhone 4 on Verizon Wireless. Apple's second big unveiling of 2011 came March 2, when Jobs took a San Francisco stage to unveil the next-generation iPad 2. "Is 2011 going to be the year of the copycats? I think if we did nothing, maybe a little bit," he told the audience. "But we haven't been resting on our laurels." Both the Verizon iPhone and iPad 2 sold well. Apple's laptops and desktops also began to take on characteristics of the company's mobile products, with the introduction of a Mac App Store that clearly took its cues from the App Store for iOS. That Mac App Store came as part of Mac OS X Lion, Apple's latest Mac OS X upgrade, which it released in mid-July. At the same time, Apple also terminated its iconic white MacBook, making the lowest-priced MacBook Air the entry-level laptop. In October, Apple continued its blockbuster sales run with the iPhone 4S. Steve Jobs died Oct. 5, following a long battle with cancer. His influence on the company will be felt for some time.
Verizon iPhone 4
In January, Apple whipped the curtain back from one of tech's worst-kept secrets: the iPhone 4 on Verizon. With the exception of tinkering with the antenna to make it Code Division Multiple Access-applicable (CDMA-applicable), the Verizon version of the iPhone 4 offered precious little difference from the AT&T version in both hardware and software.
