Apple's 10 biggest hits, misses, and head-scratchers of 2014

Apple had a blockbuster year. New iPhones, new iPads, a mobile payment solution that might actually change the way we pay, and an entirely new product category in Apple Watch.

这并不是说有没有失误：iOS版8.0.1，任何人吗？

我们回顾一下今年的苹果，从破纪录的iPhone订单的高法律战的低，所有的感人和令人捧腹之间瞬间。

Few were surprised when Apple推出一个更大的iPhone今年秋天,但不是很多人预计公司哈ve two super-sized devices on hand. The 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch 6 Plus were immediate hits, selling more than 10 million units in one weekend and then selling out across the country. CEO Tim Cook said the phones broke records for most orders taken—and by a high margin. “We’re selling everything that we’re making,”他说在该公司的第四季度财报电话会议。

Other smartphone manufacturers have been making supersized phones for awhile now, so it was unclear whether Apple’s attempt to go big so late in the game would be a success. It’s pretty clear now.

Apple never uses the term “smartwatch” to describe theforthcoming Apple Watch由于今年春天，从它的竞争对手分开公司的可穿戴的有目的的决定。Just like Apple wasn’t the first to launch a mobile payments solution or release a supersized smartphone, the company is far from the first to debut a smartwatch, but from what we’ve seen so far, Apple Watch won’t be like other wearables.

还有的数字树冠，可以帮助您导航，用于通知触觉反馈，苹果公司支付，并希望只为您的手腕内置了一些惊人的应用程序，更不用说各种专为每一种生活方式版本。苹果没有同台竞技与Apple关注，它瞄准了其他手表等智能手表。

当有一些用户报告自己的品牌新的iPhone 6加了单位的在裤子口袋里是在压力下弯曲，随之而来的争议螺旋到目前为止失控，苹果在记者来看望了严格的测试，其电话忍受之前被释放。

Bendgate wasn’t as serious an issue as Antennagate (we might run out of words to affix -gate to), which prompted Steve Jobs to cut short a family vacation to return and do right by the slew of iPhone 4 buyers whose cellular connectivity was compromised by the phone’s metal band. Apple said only nine people正式投诉到公司about their new devices being bent. It’s unclear how many people exchanged a bent phone for a new one, but the dust quickly settled.

Photo credit: Devin Pitcher

iOS 8 rolled out with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, but it was missing something: all the HealthKit-integrated apps that were one of the new operating system’s calling cards. Apple quickly pushed out an iOS update the following week to add HealthKit support, butwithin minutes of iOS 8.0.1’s release，users reported problems. Serious problems. The update rendered cellular connectivity and Touch ID on the iPhone 6 Plus completely unusable. Apple pulled the update and offered an iTunes workaround for people whose phones were turned into mini iPads. The bad press from #Bendgate and the botched iOS update culminated inone very bad week for Apple，but, as usual, the company easily rebounded.

今年，苹果终于敲定了和解协议，支付受到与该国最大的五家图书出版商的定价协议的电子书用户。纽约一名法官去年裁定，苹果密谋与出版商提高电子书价格，并在今年批准$ 450百万解决。This was a big hit for Apple, which maintained throughout the legal proceedings that Amazon had a monopoly on ebook pricing until Apple entered the market.

But now the company is getting another chance to make its case in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and according to a最近路透社的报道，该公司的说法似乎落在更同情的耳朵。如果苹果赢得上诉，该公司将不必支付结算。

苹果并不陌生法律缠结之间的专利战三星和电子书的价格战，该公司的高管们看到很多法庭阴谋在过去的几年里。但是，苹果公司最新的法律纠纷也是它最怪异的一个：即由被告上播放的iPod阻挡对手的音乐服务的歌违反反垄断法的A公司集体诉讼。该集体诉讼的地位谁覆盖2006年9月和2009年3月，是覆盖800万人口的定义之间购买iPod的人。但最终，案件土崩瓦解律师发现后衣服的两名原告weren’t members of the class—they didn’t buy iPods during the covered time period. A last-minute plaintiff was found, but didn’t have time to take the stand, and the陪审团在苹果胜诉。

图片来源：Triller酒店/ Flickr的创作共用

Apple’s game-changing product of the year wasn’t a bigger iPhone, or even the biggest iPhone—it was Apple Pay. The ability to wave an iPhone near a terminal to pay for stuff is an example of the kind of seamlessness and ease of use Apple strives for, and in a10-day bicoastal test，we discovered Apple Pay is the easiest way to pay for just about anything.

Of course, there are limitations: If you don’t have an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus with built-in NFC capability, you can’t use Apple Pay in stores. The company also needs在船上多的零售商to give Apple Pay more compelling use cases beyond Whole Foods and Walgreens (although those are great, too).

When rumors that Apple was making a play for Dr. Dre’s headphone company, Beats Audio, first began swirling last May, it was kind of a head-scratcher. Apple has long been in the music business, but it was unclear why the company needed to add headphones to its accessories lineup. But the deal turned out to be legit: Apple花了$ 3十亿for Jimmy Iovine and Dre’s company, and the two joined Apple.

收购完成了四个多月后，苹果公司的兴趣的原因仍然是模糊的，但变得更加清晰。苹果彻底改变了音乐产业与iTunes，但现在下载正在减少和流是在增长。苹果可能已经耳机制造商的其他产品后：节拍音乐，独特的流媒体应用程序，苹果可以嫁给iTunes来创建Spotify的挑战者。

2014 was a year chock full of new Apple products, but it will also be remembered as theend of an era for the iPod classic。这是不是一个真正的惊喜时，该公司悄然撤下从苹果商店经典的点击轮的MP3播放器。苹果已经售出的设备多年没有更新，但它很少提及，缺乏的钟声和新模型的iPod口哨。（虽然有160GB的存储容量，音乐收藏家并不十分关心花里胡哨的。）

“我们无法得到的部分了，”苹果公司首席执行官蒂姆·库克在十月的WSJD直播会议上解释说。

Now that the classic has vanished from store shelves, it’s become非常受欢迎，在eBay。One “vintage” 160GB classic sold for $900 on the popular reselling site, and thousands of others are up for sale.

One morning toward the end of October, after the usual fall blitz of Apple news coverage had died down, Apple CEO Tim Cook published adeeply personal essayin which he publicly said for the first time thathe is gay。

许多苹果迷迎来了新闻一个响亮的，“咩。谁在乎？”当然，库克仍与相同的职责任务相同的CEO。但作为一个世界500强企业的第一个公开同性恋身份的CEO，如边缘记者凯西牛顿在他自己的注意个人随笔，Cook’s high-profile announcement means a great deal to young gay people looking for a role model.

Photo credit: Martyn Williams