2008 year in review: Apple

The iPhone took a back seat to rumours about Steve Jobs's health

Apple made financial strides on the back of the iPhone, iPod and Macintosh lines, while questions over the health of co-founder and chief executive Steve Jobs left some wondering over the long-term future of the company.

As has been the case since 1997, Apple kicked off its year with a keynote address from Jobs at the Macworld Expo.

The event saw the unveiling of the MacBook Air, a super-thin notebook which sported no optical drive and weighed in at just 3lbs.

The keynote also introduced new backup devices and announced that iTunes would begin allowing movie rentals in which users could download movies and watch them over a 24-hour period.

One thing missing from the keynote was a major announcement regarding the iPhone. Two months later, Jobs fixed that when he unveiled a software development kit for the handset and announced plans for an online application store.

Later in the year, at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Jobs unveiled the iPhone 3G, an updated version of the handset which sported a faster 3G connection as well as GPS hardware and improved battery life.

The July release of the new iPhone shattered sales records in the US and worldwide, firmly establishing the iPhone as a true international player in the smartphone market.

The iPhone wasn't the only thing putting Apple in the news, however. The WWDC keynote also brought renewed speculation about Jobs's health. Many in the industry noted his gaunt appearance, and wondered whether the Apple chief was ill.

Apple said at the time that Jobs was merely suffering from a cold, but later reports acknowledged that he was having ongoing nutritional issues as the result of pancreatic cancer surgery in 2004.

As the year progressed, speculation on Jobs's health remained a nagging problem for Apple. In October, a false report that Jobs had suffered a heart attack sent Apple's stock plummeting.

Autumn brought new product rollouts from Apple, including updated versions of the iPod and a new MacBook Pro model which sported a "seamless" case milled from a single block of aluminium.

Apple made further headlines as the year drew to a close, revealing in December that Jobs would end his 10-year run as the Macworld Expo keynote speaker, and that the company would pull out of the Expo entirely from 2009.

Health concerns were again brought up by observers, but Apple said that the decision was down to a waning importance for companies to participate in trade shows.

Jobs's health has been the subject of much rumour, but nobody could question the financial robustness of his company. In October, Apple had a reported stockpile of $24bn (£15bn) in cash and, despite sagging numbers in recent months, looks better equipped to handle the financial turmoil than many others in the tech world.