2004 - beginning of the end

Below is a chronological timeline of the year's defining moments, featuring key quotes from Steve Jobs, followed by my own personal thoughts and reflections on experiencing this historic era firsthand. January 6, 2004 — Macworld San Francisco 2004 Steve Jobs introduces the ultra-popular iPod mini for $249. Shrunk down to the size of a business card, it introduces the iconic, solid-state click wheel design framework and features an anodized aluminum chassis available in five pastel colors, instantly making the iPod a high-fashion accessory. Because the iPod mini is so compact, we ran into a real real-estate problem on the front casing. We didn't have room for both the touch wheel and the four separate hardware buttons that sat above it on our third-generation iPod. So our engineering team did something brilliant. They integrated the buttons directly underneath the wheel. June 1, 2004 — D: All Things Digital Conference (D2) Sitting on the interview stage, Jobs famously previewed the unannounced AirPort Express weeks before its official release, dismantled the narrative surrounding Apple's retail failures, and pulled back the curtain on the cultural divide between Silicon Valley and Hollywood. What’s been interesting is we didn't set out to do this, but the record for going from zero to a billion dollars in retail sales was held by Old Navy, it’s part of The Gap. We just beat it. Our retail stores went from zero to a billion faster than anyone’s ever done it before. June 28, 2004 — WWDC 2004 (San Francisco) Steve Jobs gives developers a comprehensive first look at Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). Apple completely refreshes its professional display workspace by rolling out its new aluminum-framed active-matrix monitors, crowned by the gargantuan 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. Apple announces the AirPort Express, a tiny, plug-and-play wireless router that introduces AirTunes (the precursor to AirPlay), allowing users to wirelessly stream music from iTunes directly to home stereo systems via a built-in audio jack. AirPort Express isn't just the world's first mobile 802.11g base station—with the addition of AirTunes users can now play their iTunes music on any stereo in their home—all without wires. This innovative Apple product will appeal to both notebook users who want wireless freedom in their hotel rooms and to music lovers who want to listen to their iTunes music library on a stereo located anywhere in their home. July 19, 2004 — The 4th-Generation iPod Apple unrolls the 4th-Generation iPod, migrating the highly praised capacitive Click Wheel technology from the iPod mini over to the flagship full-sized music player line, while extending internal battery runtimes out to 12 continuous hours. The fourth generation iPod features Apple's amazing Click Wheel for superb one-handed control, 12-hour battery life and the new Shuffle Songs command in the main menu—all in an even smaller design that puts up to 10,000 songs in your pocket. August 1, 2004 — Steve Jobs' First Medical Leave Apple publicly discloses that Steve Jobs underwent a successful surgical operation to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas. Jobs takes a month-long medical leave of absence to recover, temporarily handing over administrative executive controls to head of worldwide operations Tim Cook. I have some personal news to share with you, and I wanted you to hear it directly from me. This weekend I underwent a successful surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from my pancreas. I had a very rare form of pancreatic cancer called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, which represents about 1 percent of all cases of pancreatic cancer, and can be cured by surgical removal if diagnosed in time (as mine was). I will be recuperating during the month of August and expect to return to work in September....I'm sending this from my hospital bed using my 17-inch PowerBook and an AirPort Express. August 31, 2004 — Apple Expo Paris 2004 With Steve Jobs recovering from surgery, Senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller takes the international stage to unveil the completely redesigned iMac G5. Taking direct design inspiration from the iPod, the iMac G5 elegantly integrates the entire logic board, optical drive, and computing architecture directly behind a floating 17-inch or 20-inch flat-panel display, establishing the clean all-in-one desktop design language Apple utilizes to this day. October 26, 2004 — Apple Special Music Event (San Jose) Steve Jobs returns to the stage at the California Theatre to launch the iPod Photo, introducing a premium crisp color screen to the traditional form factor to support synchronized digital photo galleries and album artwork capabilities. Apple partners with rock legends U2 to introduce the iPod U2 Special Edition. The iPod photo is the next big leap for the iPod. After music, the number one thing people want to carry with them is their photos. We have taken our legendary forty-gigabyte and sixty-gigabyte iPods and put an incredible, high-resolution color screen on them. I was still living near the University of Central Florida (UCF) during this chapter, though I managed to upgrade my living situation by moving into a new apartment with fewer roommates. It was the year I parted ways with my beloved 12-inch PowerBook G4, passing it along to a close friend so I could take a massive leap forward into desktop territory with a revised Power Mac G5. Looking back, I still laugh at myself wondering why on earth I thought I needed that much raw, workstation-level horsepower. I paired the tower with a third-party Sony flat-panel monitor instead. It wasn't an all-Apple setup, but it absolutely flew—and it made playing Halo: Combat Evolved an absolute joy. On the portable audio front, I completely skipped past the colorful iPod mini craze that was sweeping the nation. Instead, I set my sights on the classic form factor and picked up the 4th-Generation "Click Wheel" iPod, completely content with its monochrome screen and feeling zero temptation to shell out extra for the newly minted iPod photo. Because I was clocking grueling late-night hours at work—typically rolling in around 7:00 PM and not finishing until 3:00 AM—my internal clock was completely flipped. I have no idea how many of Apple's live keynotes I actually managed to catch as they happened that year. It was a bizarre era to follow the company, highlighted by the first time in memory that a major Apple Event took place entirely without Steve Jobs on stage. When Phil Schiller stepped out to deliver the Apple Expo Paris keynote that August, he did an incredible job anchoring the ship. Watching him successfully pull off the iMac G5 introduction made me a genuine fan of his style, and I continued to appreciate his presentation energy for years to come. The absolute simplicity and elegance of the all-in-one design grabbed my attention immediately, and it wasn't long before the gorgeous 20-inch model officially replaced my overpowered Power Mac G5 tower. Since I was constantly using my Macs to watch movies or play music, the iMac felt like it was tailor-made for my daily routine—especially because it shipped with that clever, minimalist Apple Remote Control that magnetically snapped right onto the side of the bezel when you weren't using it. At the time, the sheer gravity of Steve’s illness didn't truly register with me. Apple casually explained away his absence as a routine summer medical recovery, and I was simply too disconnected from the deeper implications of his diagnosis to realize what it could ultimately mean for him and the future of the company. The year wound down with a quiet, incredibly intimate media milestone. On December 7, 2004, Time magazine dispatched photojournalist Diana Walker to document Steve Jobs at his private residence in Palo Alto, California. Those images instantly became some of my absolute favorite photographs of Steve ever captured. Free from the stark, high-contrast theatrical lighting of a convention center stage or the carefully curated backdrop of an official press event, he was captured just being a regular person—captured, quite literally, at home.